The crackle of gravel under rubber, the quiet murmur of wind dancing through the leaves, and the bittersweet scent of pine. These are the sounds and smells I wake to as the car trundles down the drive to my grandparents’ home—and there are few I love better. I imagine Aldo Leopold felt much the same about his farm in his Sand County Almanacs. His, an abandoned farm in Wisconsin in the 1940s, mine an abandoned farm in Northern Michigan my maternal grandparents bought in the 1960s. It was this farm that intimately introduced me to nature beginning infancy. I believe it is due to this exposure to nature that I am keenly aware of the complex connections between humans and nature today. My grandparents’ home, affectionately dubbed the Fen …show more content…
And when the chill cuts into my hands, the blazing fire offers me warmth, a gift from trees of every kind. Through every season, the land gives me pure, sweet water, and creatures of every kind to search the grass and trees for a brief glimpse—owls, foxes, deer, bats, coyotes, porcupines, skunks, pileated woodpeckers, humming birds, eastern hognose snakes—the list continues. Leopold speaks similarly of XXXX. However, he is far more enamored in the minutiae of the flora and fauna than I. He waxes poetic on the goose, devoting an entire XXX to it and names XXX. I just enjoy watching. If I do not recognize an exact species or know its name, I rarely seek out an answer. Perhaps I will ask my grandfather or parents if they are nearby, but I am content to remain ignorant in this situation. I saw what I saw and no word will impact the wonder I experienced, it is just as magnificent. I find a harmony in nature, a simplicity not found even in my rural village, much less in cities. The food is fresh, the world is quiet, and there is no need for hurry. I have very little control over my surroundings, they are beyond me living their own existences freely. Times moves slowly, and I must find my own stimulation. I look at my surroundings and I wonder about a great many things. Sometimes I find answers, sometimes I do not. At the Fen, I find balance. I can only guess why Leopold loved the natural so passionately. His feelings seep through his writings, but
Although Leopold’s love of great expanses of wilderness is readily apparent, his book does not cry out in defense of particular tracts of land about to go under the axe or plow, but rather deals with the minutiae, the details, of often unnoticed plants and animals, all the little things that, in our ignorance, we have left out of our managed acreages but which must be present to add up to balanced ecosystems and a sense of quality and wholeness in the landscape.
“There was the honest cock robin, the favorite game of the stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous note; and the twittering blackbirds flying in the sable clouds; and the golden-winged woodpecker with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage; and the cedar bird, with its red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the grove” (11). The very vivid descriptions of the birds, people, and nature gave a more creeped out feeling than
The reader can first determine Oliver’s appreciation for nature through her vivid and crystal clear imagery of the “great horned” through the night. With its “razor-tipped toes” and “hooked-beak,” Oliver’s descriptions of the great horned owl show her respect towards the owl, and in the same vein, nature. Similarly, “the white gleam of the [snowy owl’s] feathers” effectively indicates Oliver’s respect and positive attitude towards nature and its picturesque qualities. At the same
The world was soft and warm. There were sweet voices and bright colors that surrounded me, begging for comfort. I lay with my small body swaddled in a blanket, resting on a soft green sofa. My head propped up on a plump pillow facing the fireplace. The sound of the sweet voice in my ears and the smooth blanket eased my aching. My brain pulsed behind my eyelids with every movement. My bones were stiff and sharp, but still gave me the urge to move them awake again. I arch my back and widened my arms, my fingers outstretched to the room. My hand falls on something wet and cold. I grasp it and am met with a hot slimey tongue over my fingers; a greeting. I turn to meet the wide brown eyes of my companion, the one who refused to leave my side from the beginning of my harsh fever. He whined and laid his jaw on my belly, still not taking his big eyes off me.
Aldo Leopold laid the foundation for environmental awareness decades ahead of a “ecological conscience” (257). There have many pleas to reconnect humanity with nature since the release of Leopold’s cherished book. Intuition and reason tell us that living in harmony with our world is more than idealistic—the future of our planet depends on it. The desire for harmony is not new one. Humans have long time sought to live in peace. It is genuine feelings of love and
There have been countless influential people in my life that I’ve come across. One who was a meticulous inspiration continues to be my grandfather. My grandmother had remarried to the one I call “grandpa” when I was at the age of five, and they both took to each other’s grandchildren as their own. With my mother and me only living a mile down the road from their farmhouse out in the country, I’d spent heaps amount of time there as a child. Indeed, I had been without a father but my grandfather stepped up to the plate and had taken me under his wing and willingly played the personification of a father figure.
The beautiful blossoms that bloom in Californian spring, the summer daisies alongside the cooling lake, long after the summer the trees have lost their leaves entering autumn to fresh white snow out in the mountains. Nature is able to show us its true beauty without any falseness and modifications. After all, is it not ironic how people go to museums to look at paintings of colorful flowers, green hills, and clear water streams; those are beauties that can easily be observed in real life outside of the urban environment which are surrounded by them, or how people buy recordings of the calming sounds of nature, similar to what you would listen to at night in the woods or smell nature aromas of the candles. What we are doing is trying to mislead our minds and pretend to think that we are in the woods but are instead cornered inside our small, well-furnished, and full -with-technology apartment.
In 1949, Aldo Leopold published the book “A Sand County Almanac”, a book which written as a firsthand explanation of the natural resources and beauties that the Earth has to offer. This book dives into the issues surrounding the disregard for natural wildlife and the need for conservation in order for the natural world to progress and keep thriving. Leopold also talks about different seasons and the beauty of individual animals he comes across, and how their survival is a feat in itself. The importance of environmental conservation and the need to treat nature with care is a vibrant concept that will be explained throughout this paper, as well. This accounting of “A Sand County Almanac” will accurately describe
Aldo Leopold is considered by many to be one of the leading founders of conservation biology. From a very young age, he had a heightened interest in the outdoors and later pursued a career in the U.S. Forest Service. In 1949, he published a book about conservation called, “A Sand County Almanac”. Contained within the book is one of his writings, “The Land Ethic”, an influential writing that was designed to inform and inspire others to do their part in conserving the earths remaining wilderness.
The poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver connects the both the natural and human world as it compares human life to the travels of wild geese. Touching on the landscapes of the natural world and emotions faced by the average person; Oliver manages to use devices such as tone, metaphors and descriptive images to convey a message that helps a person view life from a different perspective. Oliver makes it clear that the relationship between the wild and the human is coexistence; where one universe continues on if the parallel seems to have stopped. Thus, Oliver is able to move the reader on a comforting journey as she entangles the natural world and human world, showing that the natural world has more
He saw many animals that live in the northern woodlands such as raccoons and cougars. He looked at the strange animal in the swamp. It was after him.
He emphasises on the presence of and an enveloping satisfaction through multi stimuli in nature; giving an example of a trek through a forest, and the feeling of being within the space of a clearing invoked by peripheral vision, complete with the crunching of leaves under the feet and sap smell that surrounds us through the trek.
Sometimes in life you need to get up close and personal to see things as they actually are. The presence of the summer sun in the forest canopy flickered in and out of existence with the gentle breeze. This one was a relaxing day, filled with serene landscapes of nature, as I hiked with two childhood pals. A trek through the forest on my uncle’s two-hundred acres was a natural occurrence during the summer, Josh and Norm, two fellow adventure enthusiasts, usually came along. After a few hours of making our way through dense brush and muddy creek beds we reached the forest’s edge. We gazed upon the clearing ahead, an empty field that stretched as far as the eyes could see. Norm noticed it first, “look at the size of that deer!” he shouted,
In American Literature many authors write about nature and how nature affects man's lives. In life, nature is an important part of people. Many people live, work, or partake in revelry in nature. Nature has received attention from authors spanning several centuries. Their attitudes vary over time and also reflect the different outlooks of the authors who chose to discuss this important historical movement. A further examination of this movement, reveals prevalence of nature's influence on man and how it affects their lives.
As I left behind the somber forest, I now recognized an appreciation for nature that I did not realize I had. I now knew there was more to nature than just trees and animals, but also I found the