By Lukie Pieterse, Potato News Today

In gratitude to Kevin O’Neill, whose humble act of mercy toward a vole family speaks to the deeper kinship we share with the living earth.

After publishing The Mouse, the Potato and the Measure of Mercy, I’ve received a much appreciated email from a longtime Potato News Today reader and online friend, Kevin O’Neill. His response touched me deeply. It reminded me why I began writing these reflections in the first place — to honor those small, seemingly insignificant human moments when something in us softens, and the world feels briefly, mercifully right and a little more kind.

Kevin wrote about a spring day when his spade sliced open a vole nest — a mother and her litter startled in their tiny earthen home. Like many of us would, his first reaction was to lift the spade higher, ready to end what had been a recurring nuisance in his garden. But something stopped him. He hesitated. Then, as the mother began carrying her young to safety, another spirit took hold.

Kevin lowered the spade.
He walked away.
He chose mercy.

Later, he thought about how we live together on this earth — how every creature has its place and its claim, however inconvenient it might be to ours. Kevin remembered an earlier spring when his duck house had been raided by a fisher. His county agent told him that fishers can squeeze through a two-inch hole, and that it was nesting season for them too. A few weeks later, Kevin met one in the forest — the same wary creature that had taken his ducks — and for a brief moment, they simply looked at each other. Both alive, both belonging – both wanting to live another day.

There’s quiet wisdom in that kind of restraint. It’s the knowledge that comes not from books, but from years of walking the same ground and realizing that control is an illusion. As we grow older, most of us become wiser and discover this: that coexistence is not weakness, but strength — the kind that humbles us, steadies us, and teaches us to live with grace rather than conquest.

Kevin’s story echoed a truth I tried to capture in another reflection, The Day a Fragile, Disabled Little Girl Taught Me the Simple Joy of Feeling the Sun. That young girl, with her face turned toward a sunlight she could not see but only feel, taught me the same lesson Kevin’s voles did: that all life, no matter how small or imperfect or insignificant it might be to us, seeks warmth, safety, belonging, and above all – love and compassion.

There is a holiness in the moment when the hand that could destroy instead decides to spare. It is not loud or heroic. It happens quietly — in a garden, a field, a forest — where someone simply pauses long enough to feel the weight of another life, and cares enough to do so.

Kevin’s words reminded me that mercy isn’t weakness; it’s the highest form of wisdom we can practice as caretakers of the land, and for that matter, as humans. Every farmer, every gardener, every person who works close to the earth knows this instinctively — the truth that the soil holds not just our crops, but our conscience.

Thank you, Kevin, for your letter, your kindness, your wisdom, and the mercy you chose that day. You remind us that the earth doesn’t need our perfection — just our pause, our patience, and our willingness to let life live…

Author: Lukie Pieterse, Potato News Today. In gratitude to Kevin O’Neill from the the stony fields of New England.
Image: Credit Potato News Today