There’s a movement that is becoming a bit troubling to me, and I’m not talking politics, AI or the future. I’ll let other bloggers talk about that.

I’m talking about gratitude. Writing thank you notes is becoming a lost art, even just writing a note in general is rare. And nowhere is the absence of thank you felt more greater than in nature.

Specifically, animals.

Yes, I am finding that for the most part, animals of the world are an ungrateful bunch.

Except dogs. Dogs love us unconditionally, wag their tales and give us those big, sorrowful eyes when we’re sitting at the kitchen table and so we extend our hand and give them a scrap of food (even though we know it makes them fat). We don’t deserve dogs.

Every night, I leave a bowl of cat food out for the cats, and other critters decide to partake in the cat food buffet.

Possums, with their rat-shaped face and pirate smile, will trot up to the dish, and generally, they are tipping over the bowl to get the last morsel. But if I happen to walk outside and disrupt their dinner, one of three things happens: 1. They either run away, 2. Hiss at me or 3. Charge at me. But never do they say thank you.

Consider this… possums eat bugs and ticks and they do their job well enough, but food in the winter can be hard to come by. They even love to get their noses slick with grease from the grill. But no thank you. Ever.

Possums=ungrateful.

Birds will even give me the occasional song, or if it’s a blue jay, they squawk about how long it took me to refill the feeders.  Ok maybe birds are a little grateful.

Racoons are another nightly visitor. Those thieves. They enjoy sitting on their haunches, staring off at the night sky and eating the cat food like popcorn. And how do they say thanks, well they wash their hands in perfectly good water and leave an inch of mud, straw, dirt and just general filth.

Just the other night, the water dish was completely dry and dragged three feet from where I had left it the night before. The bowl was dry.

Every morning, I change the water, knowing its futile, because the raccoon will be back again.

Not the best guest.

You might be thinking why I don’t just bring the food in at night, and occasionally I do, but you have to understand one thing. I have outside cats.

Cats are grazers, they keep coming back to the buffet, eat a little, run off, roll in the dirt, come back brown and dusty and eat again. They just assume the food will be there, so why fill the belly completely in one stop.

And before you tell me that cats don’t say thank you, I do get the occasional gift (aka a mouse or bird or snake), and I get a general leg rub or head butt. Generally, the cats say thank you in some way nearly every day.

Cats=grateful.

I’m not really making my point, am I? Sadly, even raccoons have changed my mind.

When I started to write this blog a few weeks ago, I was completely annoyed with the racoons. The daily water dump and rinse was getting old. And then something changed. I dumped out the water one morning, and a small white rock fell out of the bowl.

What is this? A gift? I thought maybe it was just the raccoon wanted to wash his rock, but he dropped it in the filthy water and couldn’t find it again. Well it served him right.

The next morning, I found two rocks. The morning after, a piece of wood. Since I then, I have found multiple rocks, a piece of plastic, a stick shaped like a sword, a long rusty bolt and more pieces of wood. None of these things were close to the water. The raccoon had to put thought into what he wanted to drop into the water. He made a choice as to what he threw in the bowl.

Perhaps, I was wrong. In the dead of winter and early spring, water is not as easy to find. The raccoon found hope in the one thing that he does not have to fight or scavenge for. Because of this gift of water, he gave something in return.

Maybe nature is a bit more grateful than I gave them credit for. And when we experience small acts of kindness, perhaps we should offer a thank you to like nature does.

I admit that I look forward to what the raccoon deemed worthy of dropping in the water. Sometimes, if the bowl is empty, I do feel a little sad and wonder if my buddy got lost or hurt.

Why should I care? Because it brings me joy. Simple as that, and I am grateful for the gifts the raccoon shares with me.

Well except for possums. Still ungrateful.

P.S. I have since found out that raccoons like to horde treasure. They are in fact pack rats. The raccoon is likely setting the “treasure” in the water, and he forgets about it. Not a gift.

Raccoon=ungrateful.

I still look for the gift anyway.