Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Ecology and Conservation | 
pickOver a couple of years I‘ve read bits and pieces of Leopold‘s dedication to & love of the land, i.e. the “biotic community.” The best selections for me were the intimate descriptions of his plot of Wisconsin land & surrounding area.
Leopold succeeds in “building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind” for the environment. Does the environment have intrinsic moral value? I whole heartedly agree with him that it does.
Written in the 60‘s, Leopold is urgently calling for a shift to an eco/biocentrist perspective & conservation. But not the “beautification” projects or compromise of empty gestures that make us feel better, i.e. creating toothless agencies.
“The land is one organism. Its parts, like our own parts, compete with each other and cooperate with each other....To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent thinking.”
Can‘t judge a country scape by the paucity of “monumental” natural landmarks. I love the stark and often vast beauty of open plains, meadows, & tundra, which might to a passerby seem empty and lonely.
I just read Leopold‘s insightful chapter on the difference between land and country. I have to share two excerpts. 🐿
Pondering the element of beauty in natural landscapes.
Reflection after the government in all its wisdom killed the last grizzly on Escudilla mountain in AZ. They made it safe for cattle, despite the bear only killing one cow each spring. Certainly seemed a fair enough price for sharing the same space.
Related, but from a different book, today I read the Hopis (AZ) traditionally plant more corn than needed for human consumption because animals need to eat too. Seems a reasonable solution to me.
1947
Seems the pace of environmentalism is glacial. My one glimmer of hope is that my kids are learning a great deal more about stewardship than I did in school.
I have neglected monthly readings from Sand County Almanac with life happenings since July. I pulled it back out to read Leopold‘s December entry. 🐇🌲
It‘s June in Wisconsin and Leopold spent a morning hunting trout, but it‘s much more than just fishing.
Sharing May Day with Leopold and the upland plover.
It‘s been an especially long MN winter, so today the scent of the first light spring shower and chit chattering of nesting birds is very welcome.
April with Aldo Leopold: “It is fortunate, perhaps, that no matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all of the salient facts about any one of them.”
Fortunate indeed!
If we think we are going to learn by cruising round the mountains in a Ford, we are largely deceiving ourselves...
I get the excitement of a crisp & glossy new book, but I also adore an old one that has been often read and carried, with its soft cover & pages, yellowing & fading, smell of decaying paper, and evidence of travels near & far.
This morning Aldo bore witness to history in the rings of a century Oak and geese prophesied the unfurling of spring.
This is going to be treasure often revisited. 🌿
This morning I followed Leopold tracking a skunk awakened by a January thaw.
We just had one of those thaws and every year I think they are odd & unusual, but clearly they are not.
I miss check-out cards and their little histories.
