My mother loved to dress me in frilly, embroidered things.  I was a dig-in-the-dirt-climb-a tree kind of girl--to her dismay.  But she never gave up.  She enrolled me in every culturally enlightening type of class that was available--to my dismay.  Now, I am glad she persisted.  But then, it was agony.

A good day for me was to catch crawdads in the ditch in front of our house.  Bugs, snakes, and locusts were high on my list as well.  If it could crawl, I wanted to catch it.  I caught a crawdad once with hundreds of tiny babies clutching the underside of her tail.  Of course I brought it home.  I put it in a large pan and slid it under the refrigerator.  Out of sight, where it wouldn't bother my mother.   By the next morning, there were baby crawdads all over the kitchen floor.  I had failed to get a pan with high sides.   My mother was not pleased.  She cringed at all the critters that I loved.

I wonder why God put my feminine mother, and me, her tomboy daughter together.  I certainly wasn't what she expected when she had a little girl.  She was a good mother and I was lucky to have her.  Blessed.  She taught me a lot.  I taught her a lot as well I am sure.  Probably not anything she particularly wanted to learn.

When I finished my degree in zoology she was thrilled that I had done well, even if it was in a subject she would not have chosen.   I still like snakes, bugs, tadpoles and snails.  All life was put here for the benefit of people.  Us.  God the creator entrusted us to care for the animals.

Genesis 1:21-25 "And God said, Let the waters bring forth (fish) abundantly...every winged fowl…cattle, and creeping thing…cattle, and everything that creeps on the earth…"  (He likes creeping things.  So do I.)  And then he created man and put him in charge of it.

The fish.  And the water they swim in.
The fowl.  And the air they fly in.
The cattle.  And all land life.
The earth.  And the soil
Creeping things.  The cleanup crew.  We are responsible for all of it.