Well, evolution works by competition, the survival of the fittest. It is not a “friendly” process. Strictly speaking, an evolutionary viewpoint sees all the things we normally take as beautiful as being some scheme or other to gain an edge in procuring food or mates or whatever. Bird songs are territorial markers warning other birds away, beautiful flowers are signals to pollinators, etc. In its starkest terms it is nothing like what we would call good.
Mind you, I am not a “creationist”. Creationism is a whole different problem. But evolution has always struck me as the most relentlessly grim of all ideas.
Meanwhile, my leisure may be temporarily disappearing soon as I take a rather make-shift job that is probably pointless except for the paycheck. How depressing. One more step in survival. But the weather and the garden and the local denizens are good anyway in themselves as they go about their existence.
I hope your new state is working out well. Long ago we lived in Missouri and a change in state worked out very well indeed for us. Oddly enough, we ended up in the what must be the nicest place to live in the world, though you would never guess it from a map.
Carroll