Welcome to the experiment.
What if land was managed in a way that benefits both the environment, & the animals living on it?
Human beings are animals, by the way. We’re not nearly as special as we think we are. We can’t fly, we don’t run that fast, we can’t swim that well, & are mediocre at climbing. Our only superpower, is adaptation.
Why “West of Walden”?
We are a bit West, & South, of the original Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau, the son of a wealthy pencil manufacturer, lived out his experiment. The idea of living in an original environment, had already been lost. Even in Thoreau’s time, the Eastern US had already been altered by cultivation & clear cutting. The Chesapeake Bay had already gone from a clear, grassy body of water, to being clouded with silt by topsoils destabilized by plowing, & removing the trees that slowed, & filtered, the flow of water. (Dr Grace Brush, Story of the Chesapeake).
As a child, I admired the writings & work of Audubon & Thoreau. I didn’t understand the colonialist context, or the privilege, of either man. Some of my mother’s family were on the American Continent at the time of Thoreau. My father’s family arrived later, around the time the potato harvest in Ireland failed. I was raised in Central Texas, by parents who loved the outdoors. My father, particularly, found sanctuary & solace, in the deep, piney woods of East Texas. Dad took me everywhere around those woods, & the rivers, streams & lakes of Central Texas, learning to fly-fish at age 4 or 5, handling firearms before the age of 10. I, too, was at home, in nature.
I now realize, that Audubon was as interested in prestige, as he was in birds. I realize that Thoreau, gifted as he was, in thought & word, was only able to pursue it, because his family educated him, & was well-to-do enough, to do without their son at the factory. His family brought food to his little getaway, & he went home, to do his laundry. They were also both male, which meant they weren’t expected to be part of the domestic machine: Managing a household, was often as far as a female got. I never accepted that, & thankfully, neither did my parents.
As a lower-middle-class postal worker’s kid, I got a public education (though my mother’s parents paid for preschool & kindergarten at an Episcopal church, St George’s in Austin). I only got through one semester of college, before my parents’ divorce ate college funds, & I was partially homeless & staying with friends, as I avoided conflict at home.
I have always worked, from babysitting at age 11, to my first job at the legendary Americana movie theatre in Austin, & though I did find a rewarding profession in manual therapy, I have never been able to fully pursue my dream of immersing myself in conservation, art, & a bit of writing. I’ve learned that I love caring for the land, I love seeing the natives return & flourish. I don’t mind traipsing around the woods, spraying &/or cutting invasive plants (except in dreadful heat & humidity, yuck). Watching spicebush & pawpaws return to the understory, spying a fern, or a bird I hadn’t seen before, brings so much joy.
With the short term rental built, & Chuck retired, to take care of things around the house, McGuyver buildings & fences, & cook meals, I hope to move further & deeper, into my calling.