This is Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle. Seems like some weeks just take everything out of you. Maybe your energy is zapped.

Maybe you can’t sleep too good.

Maybe your family comes for a visit. Yeah. We’ve been having way too much fun. Gandma and Gandpa keep showing up everywhere here in Apalachicola, Florida. It’s like they are following us or something.

We decided to take a leisurely hike on an island yesterday called St. George Island in this Florida place.

Although it was very foggy and we couldn’t see much, we still had fun learning.

There is always something to learn, even if you’ve lived in the same place all of your life. You don’t have to look far to find something to learn about.

Because everything is complex. Everything is unique. And so when we saw a sign about turpentine, I asked Girl Person what it was. Never heard of it. Maybe I needed to know.

Girl Person said she really didn’t know what it was either. She said a long time ago she used it when painting. She said sometimes persons use it to make their furniture pretty. But she never thought about where it came from.

Isn’t that the case with so much? We use something and give no thought to how it is made. And we should. Even with turpentine.

I learned that you have to injure a tree and cut it. When that happens, it tries to protect itself.

And out comes a liquid which can be turned into different things, including turpentine.

I have to say. I’ll never use turpentine. I never thought that I wanted to learn about it. And I definitely didn’t think I would learn about it on a Florida place hike.

In a place I’ve hiked so many times.

It made me feel a bit bad for the trees at first. Their pain made something useful for others. How did they feel about it, I wondered.

The simple fact? We don’t know it all. We don’t know how or if the trees feel. But do we respect what they give us? Do we respect what others give us when they go thru pain and use their experience to help others? Can you use your pain to help others?

Like turpentine is useful, so are we. No matter what we have been thru, we can help and inspire someone else. Look around you today. And when you take time to learn about something new, learn more about yourself.

–Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle

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