“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” –Maya Angelou

I’ve always had a thing about the houses I’ve lived in. No matter their size, age, shape, or beauty (or lack thereof), I have always fallen in love with them. There was the farmhouse when I was a preschooler with a red hand-pump that was the source of our water at the kitchen sink, the huge metal register over the coal furnace, and the outhouse on the other side of the driveway. There was the hotel-like square-block-of-a-house with six bedrooms upstairs (with no heat) that we rented my senior year in high school. There was the Civil-War-era house Chris and I rented in Missouri when we were first married that only had a fuel oil stove in one room of the huge house, had ancient floral wallpaper, and a kitchen large enough and spare enough that it could have housed us and all our four-legged friends. They were all my home for a certain, wonderful, impressionable period of my life.

When I arrived at my Mom’s place last month (one of those homes on my list of homes), I looked out over the pasture and wondered out loud, “Whose home is this? Cows or geese?” The Canadian Geese were scattered from the lake like marbles tossed from a hand. They ranged across the pasture, grazing at blades of grass and tasty seeds, then settled down to rest in the sun like miniature cows.

At this time of year, they were much more interested in pasture than the lake, but would wade into the water for a drink or a bite to eat in the shore mud…

or for a quick swim with their companion ducks.

The cows grazed their ‘summer pasture’ home, making the rounds from hilltop to hilltop.

Nights and early mornings they were bedded down in the grass, chewing their cud, resting and digesting.

The bull maintained his large presence with the herd by belching out low bellows and by watching over and schooling the young calves.

Each species had their routine and their preferred places, but just as often I would see the two groups together—grazing together, resting together, at home together. My Mom said occasionally she had noticed a scuffle between a protective cow and a pugnacious goose, but for the most part, they lived in harmony.

Whose home is this? The cows and calves have returned from their rented summer home to their ‘winter pasture’ closer to their caretakers. Some of the geese stay for most of the year and enjoy abundant food, water, and protection for raising their families and living a good goose life, but still usually fly south to a new home for the coldest winter months. Who remains? The gophers, coyotes, fox, opossums, the myriad of amphibians and insects in various stages of development, and many other species. The pasture is home to many.

I would amend Maya Angelou’s quote by taking out the word human—“I long, as does every being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” The creatures around us desire a safe place to live with food, water, shelter, and protection—wherever they find themselves. And most often, they do so with one another in the web of Nature’s life. They are at home together. Another thing we can learn from Mother Nature. As humans though, with our big brains, we are challenged and compelled even, to go beyond the finding of a home with its shelter, safety, and sustenance. “It’s not about finding a home so much as finding yourself,” says actor Jason Behr. Finding yourself. Finding ourselves. See what I mean about a challenge?