LEARNING FROM THE OTTERS

Top to bottom: Crystal River the Homestead, drying off in the sand after a swim, a few minutes of fun and relaxations on a catamaran.


This past week Shirley and I took our annual Fall trip with my mom , my sisters and brother in-laws . We have been doing this since 1999 and all but one year have gone to Michigan, where we usually rent a condo on Lake Michigan at the Homestead in Glen Arbor. This year we especially enjoyed a family or a group of six otters that were in the Crystal River near the outlet to Lake Mich. Part of the reason the otter were there were the large quantity of salmon coming in to spawn. This was my first opportunity to observe otter in the wild and during 4 days of seeing and filming them I learned a few admirable characteristics they display .

** FELLOWSHIP: High level of social interaction they thrive on the need to be together and stay together. When separated they could often be heard calling the members of the group with a whistle like noise.
** TEAMWORK: They worked together in rounding up fish in the water and in grooming themselves.
** SHARING : They shared with the others in the group the food they caught from oldest to youngest (biggest to smallest).
** POSITIVE ATTITUDE: They seem to never have an attitude of we can't accomplish this task. Even when the fishermen chased them off they would regroup and do something else for awhile then resume with the task.
** JOY: They display a real zest to enjoying life every minute of each day. Everything I observed them do they seemed to go about with a sense of enjoyment, this is definitely tied to having a positive attitude.
** EFFICIENCY: They seem to make wise use of time and whether on foot or in the water they move very quickly. I'm sure they take time for rest but they were always in motion of doing something.

I have heard some of my friends talk about a profile test where your leadership characteristics are given the designation of 4 different animals and if I remember the otter is one of them. I'm not personally familiar with that profile test but from what I observed we could all take some pointers on how to live life from the otter.
In God's love , steve