Hidden Things

Some parts of the circle of life remain hidden from us because we aren't looking. Others consciously hide from us, like the elusive medaka fish beneath the water hyacinths. The medaka live in a large urn in the garden year round. In winter they bury into the mud at the bottom, and so escape freezing. Nightly temperatures are recorded in the quality and depth of the ice each the morning.

The medaka share the urn with snails, dragonfly and mosquito larvae, and countless other small organisms. Birds come to bathe, and sometimes a cat comes to drink. The cat cannot stop itself from hunting that which moves. It brings the taste of the wild to the garden, and so the medaka, grand hunters within the urn, know that there is danger also, and more than one reason to remain hidden.