Getting ready for winter

The rural community where I lived for many years has many homes whose average age is 60 or more years old.  Many of these homes were built with below ground basements that served as the foundation of the home.  They are unfinished and usually quite dark with just the small windows at the base of the home and one overhead exposed light bulb. They are not considered as living space but rather a place to house a wood burning stove, canned goods, camping equipment, or freezers.  They are often susceptible to flooding in the winter.  Needless to say there is not a lot of quality time spent in these basements.  An occasional trip up and down the stairs to retrieve an item is the extent of their occupancy so often the basement may have no visitors for long periods of time.

A friend recently shared with me the story of another friend who made the journey down the stairs only to find that it had been completely taken over as a storage area for the squirrels.  Imagine her surprise when she came down the stairs and in my friends words "every pine cone in the county" had been deposited in this ladies basement.



Can you imagine!  We laughed so hard at this poor ladies dilemma! 

And yet I had to admire the work ethic of the squirrels and their foresight in planning for the future.  Somehow they realized that winter was coming, the harvest was in, and without spending a dime they labored to prepare.  They were able to see the opportunity and take advantage of it.  Of course they had to have assumed that the homeowner would see the benefits of the plan and have no objections. 

How much we can learn from the ways of the others around us?  Their life of simplicity and hard work creates the environment for abundant success and provision for the future. 

Photos from Google.