Connecting to the Land

As I write this piece I am looking across the hayfields behind my home and the mountain that begins at their far edge and rises to touch the sunset every evening. The fifty acres of spotty, old, hayfield and mixed hardwood forests that my parents purchased almost two decades ago has been a  part of my life nearly every moment. For one, the profession of farming which my parents chose to pursue, requires one to work every inch of the land almost every day of the year. Me, being an easily exploitable source of farmwork,  have done my fair share of tilling, planting, haying, and animal wrangling all over our property and the surrounding land for as long as I can remember. Secondly, of my many hobbies, most involve the outdoors. From spring fishing expeditions, summer camping trips, and winter snowshoes my life has evolved with the surrounding woods and waterways, as has the way I perceived this environment.

One distinct moment I can remember that helped shape the way I looked at nature was one of the first times I went bowhunting. Hunting, in my opinion, is one of the most serene experiences in nature because to succeed, it relies on being silent and completely observant of your surroundings. One of the first times I went bowhunting was on a sunny evening in mid-October when my friend and I walked the half or so mile to our neighbor's field where we planned on sitting in the hedgerow waiting for the elusive whitetail deer to come marching into our sights. After about an hour of sitting, I began to grow restless and toyed with a twig in front of my stand when a rustle in the bushes to my right alerted me that something was near. I had raised my bow, drawing an arrow back, when I realized that this was not, in fact, a deer, but a beautiful male grouse. The bird strutted in front of me and I relaxed my bowstring to watch it. Within the next hour, a turkey and a rather angry gray squirrel had passed before my watchful eyes. 

I did not shoot a deer that evening, nor that year (in fact I have yet to secure a deer) however, I walked away from the rapidly darkening field with a new sense of reverence for the land. Majorly, I had come to realize that nature's ways were truly random. I did not see a deer, however, I saw three other animals that I had not expected, which impressed upon me that nature had very little care for my wants or needs and that my role as a person was simply to be a part of nature just like any other turkey, grouse, or squirrel.