4/3/11
It was a mixed day. I made a new identifiable friend--I can now identify the sound of a towhee and I welcome them as my new friends.
I think that since I have been doing this outdoor work with kids I have become much more attached to nature and knowledgeable of its rythms and the creatures--their cycles, their leavings and comings. I have become closer to the critters. I welcome them back in the spring as I do a friend that has been gone for months. I send them off in the fall with a heavy heart, knowing I won't see or hear them for months. Today, I felt a pain in my heart that I have never felt before. I felt as though a family member was tortured and killed. It was a sad, painful experience to be out biking and find two, a male and female, coyote, not only dead along the road but tied together with string around their necks. I have spent the winter months with children identifying coyote tracks, feeling the excitement in them that this wild animal is out there. We find their scat with fur and bones and marvel at knowing this is from a coyote. It seems to me that the more time we spend inside at jobs that we may or may not like, the more distant we are from our connection to nature. Animals become one more "device", "gameboy" that we can use to satisfy our misguided need for power, excitement, entertainment--something to kill. We have lost our respect for our nature friends, our brothers and sisters in the woods. We kill for various reasons but it seems that need and sustenance are not in the equation.
Seeing this young pair of beautiful Wild Animals killed needlessly leaves me angry and sad and in awe at their beauty, cunning and intelligence.
Gary
I think that since I have been doing this outdoor work with kids I have become much more attached to nature and knowledgeable of its rythms and the creatures--their cycles, their leavings and comings. I have become closer to the critters. I welcome them back in the spring as I do a friend that has been gone for months. I send them off in the fall with a heavy heart, knowing I won't see or hear them for months. Today, I felt a pain in my heart that I have never felt before. I felt as though a family member was tortured and killed. It was a sad, painful experience to be out biking and find two, a male and female, coyote, not only dead along the road but tied together with string around their necks. I have spent the winter months with children identifying coyote tracks, feeling the excitement in them that this wild animal is out there. We find their scat with fur and bones and marvel at knowing this is from a coyote. It seems to me that the more time we spend inside at jobs that we may or may not like, the more distant we are from our connection to nature. Animals become one more "device", "gameboy" that we can use to satisfy our misguided need for power, excitement, entertainment--something to kill. We have lost our respect for our nature friends, our brothers and sisters in the woods. We kill for various reasons but it seems that need and sustenance are not in the equation.
Seeing this young pair of beautiful Wild Animals killed needlessly leaves me angry and sad and in awe at their beauty, cunning and intelligence.
Gary
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