Glorious spring in the western North Carolina Mountains is the season and place where my heart sings and my whole being vibrates with the sensation of thankfulness for my connectedness with creation.

I live in a Garden of Eden, a world of creative energy expressed through Mother Nature’s palate and canvass in artistry unparalleled by any other place I have ever encountered.

Our cove is a microcosm of life in all its abundance, joy, beauty, color, variety, and progression. The carpet of purple crocus that cover my front yard announce the beginning of the beauty pageant that intensifies with each addition to the runway: forsythia and daffodils add sunshine faces to the garden while prolific tulips of brilliant hues change the nature of the array from pastel to passion. Flame azaleas add their heat, and by the time the dogwoods arrive with their canopy of white, the yard is an overwhelming mass of color. I walk the garden paths each day silently greeting the individual flowers and thanking them for their beauty and for being a part of my world. They are the friends of my soul, arriving to bring joy and wonder to my life.

With the onset of spring, the bears awake, sometimes searching our porch for leftover dog kibbles. This year, we have had a few new guests take up residence in Eco Cove, arrivals, from far reaches that have decided this paradise is a good place to call home.

A blonde squirrel, with a delicately pointed face and a huge golden tail laced with white edges, found our bird feeder on the porch. Completely fearless, he ate his fill as we watched from our chairs behind full-length windows eight feet away. I’ve tried various “squirrel proof” methods on the feeder, but my furry friends can jump from amazing distances to acquire those tasty black seeds. The massive amounts of acorns around the porch and the fecundity of the black walnut tree are backups when the feeder is empty, but sunflower seeds are their preferred dietary delight. Our cats and dog no longer react to the squirrels’ hijinks, and the birds wait in line for their turn, seemingly unperturbed at the usurpers’ gall.

In early spring, we heard a noise that sounded like monkeys chattering in the woods beyond the yard. Trying to identify the sound, I suggested turkeys, which have wander across the meadow across from our house on thrilling occasion. It was very noisy chatter, however, and it kept returning. A few days later, I decided to investigate. I grabbed my camera, and started down the curved, gravel driveway. Directly in front of our yard is a creek, and we have built two ponds side-by-side along the drive. As I rounded the curve along the ponds, the sound shifted to my right ear, and I realized it was coming from the ponds, not the woods beyond. As I stepped onto the dirt bank, the chatter ceased immediately as hundreds of frogs dove for the mud below. For sixteen years, peepers have herald spring in our acre pond, and bullfrogs twanged their deep call of awakening, but our “monkey frogs” are entirely new to our environs.

The bunny population has been growing by leaps and bounds, excuse the pun, and their numbers have drawn a newcomer: coyotes began visiting our cove last fall and discovered this reliable food source. Recently, three of them bounded up to our porch at midnight. Ed chased them off by shooting a loud, black powder cannon while I searched for our cats and brought them back inside the house.

I’ve read that the coyotes that have migrated to WNC came through Canada from the West. In Canada, they mated with wolves, increasing their size. Coyotes can mate with dogs and wolves and produce fertile offspring, although wolves had a set mating season unlike the other two. I’ve seen our dog, a female who weighs about fifty pounds, go nose-to-nose with a coyote and both wagged tails in greeting. Neighbor’s dogs have, so far, presented more of a problem in our sanctuary with killing our swans and fighting our dogs.

We set out corn for ducks on our big pond on the swim float. It draws a wonderful collection of mallards and wood ducks. The occasional Canadian goose passes by, but doe not stay which is good, considering the mess they can make of a pond. The only destruction we have had to our lake has been created by people, neighbors who stripped the hillside above, allowing uncontrolled runoff. It colored the pond with mud for a whole summer, and required governmental intervention to rectify. We have the blessings of such beauty, but have to be diligent to ensure its safety.

Our Eden continues, but it is threatened by lack of rain. I no longer buy new varieties of plants to add to the garden for fear of not having enough water available to allow them to become established. Drought has caused many of our creeks to disappear, our two small ponds to dry up during the summer, and our melodic waterfall to stop singing.

When we built the small ponds nine years ago, the water flow was one hundred gallons a minute through a four inch pipe. Our acre pond has survived the onslaught of the changing weather, and I pray that it continues to remain full and to be a sanctuary for wildlife.

I feel for the suffering of those people in the world who do not have fresh water to drink, to bathe, or in which to immerse their soul. I have spoken with people from Africa who have had to send their children on daily treks, carrying jugs for hours, to collect enough water for the family to drink.

I worry for the people in our big cities like Atlanta and Raleigh that have a limited supply of water, or in smaller towns that have to buy water to fill their towers, living with daily rationing. I have watched Lake James drop twelve feet last summer, and all the boat ramps close. It has been the center of summer activity for our rural area and lack of water is doing what private land ownership could not—keep people away from its shores. I shake my head at the story of water wars between states, and taxes charged for private ponds based on estimates of how much water the government feels is lost to evaporation!

Water is the basis of all life. Without it we are doomed. When I am in nature I am most aware of God, and the connection of creation that we share with all of life in the need for liquidity to survive. I pray the world leaders will come to terms with their folly and greed and address global warming and the havoc it is causing before it is too late. It is time to hold them accountable. It is time to protect the wellspring of life.