Porcupine

My Take

DiVoran Lites

The name of this rodent came from the French: porc d’ espine or thorny pig. It is the third-largest rodent in the world. After a gestation period of approximately 112 days, the babies are born enclosed in a thin placental sac. Their quills are soft, moist, and flexible. The quills quickly harden in the air and become prickly.

When porc d’ espine is frightened, he turns his back lifts his tail and slaps the ground. The quills loosen and may stick into an enemy’s face.  

Pixabay

At times our small family, Dad, Mom, daughter, son, went into the Sangre de Cristo mountains in Colorado to fish. Dad taught us that skill, and Mother taught us about the names of wild-flowers and trees. Our dog, Brownie, went along too, and one day he got interested in a porcupine and received a snoot full of quills. 

The strange thing about quills is that they carry their own antibiotics in a fatty substance inside them. Neither the animal nor its enemy is likely to get an infection from the needles. But Brownie whined as Mother held his back legs to keep him from running away. Dad got his pliers out of his leather tool bag and pulled them out one by one. None of us ever saw another live porcupine, but you know how dogs sometimes twitch in their sleep or move their legs as if dreaming of running? We felt that sometimes he might be dreaming of that awful day when he ended up with a hurting nose.   

The quills themselves look like straws with black trim. Native American Indians have used them for generations for their splendid artwork. Each porcupine has 30,000 quills. That’s plenty to twist, wrap, and braid and use for decoration. You see them on dance costumes, leather medicine bags, knife sheaths, and baskets.

God is such a wonderful creator. The Bible says, God works all things together for good, and I believe he has a use for everything He makes. I’d say we’ll never run out of discoveries of his creation, and when we get to Heaven, we’ll probably learn all about them if it’s something we’ll enjoy knowing.