Growing up in Arlington, Washington I have spent plenty of time in nature and have had quite a few experiences that automatically pop into my head. My house was out in nature, I had very few neighbors but if I walked in any direction I would hit woods. The thing I love most is the sounds of being outdoors and hearing the birds chirp, the wind blow, and the trees creak.
My most memorable moment in nature would definitely be the time I shot my first deer. It was a family hunting trip in Eastern Washington, involving me, my brother, my cousin, and both our dads. At the time I was probably 16 and this was my second year hunting for deer. Like most hunting and fishing, the best time to go out is early in the morning. The strategy was to get up and to our spot by sunrise, that way we would be quiet and ready to go by the time daylight struck. When we finally hiked to our spot which was about two miles down the path I was exhausted, and on top of that it began to rain. When I found my tree to lean on I just fell right to sleep to the sound of the rain falling through all the trees. When I woke up it was still raining, and I didn’t see anything so I decided to start hiking a little bit. The rain was actually a big advantage for me because it covered any scent I had and it was loud so I wouldn’t spook any deer. As I was walking I heard a rustle from the bushes and sure enough I startled up a 3 point buck from its bed and I shot it.
When people talk about buck fever you don’t know how incredible of a sensation it is until you experience it. Seeing a beautiful animal like that gives you such a rush, especially since it is what you have been looking for all day long. The only bad part about this memory has to be hauling this big animal out of the woods. Often times you tend to get carried away in awe while you’re out in the wild and you just travel further and further away from where you started not realizing you have to go all the way back. And that is what I dislike the most about nature, the walk or hike back to where you started.
Nature is extremely important to me in my life and I think always will be something I will enjoy sharing. I love to fish, hunt, camp, and hike. So I get my fair share of nature and realize how much it provides for us, like most of our foods. And also how much it can take from us, like what has happened in Haiti recently. In the Bouma-Prediger text there is a quote from David Orr that states “Can we do the difficult things that are necessary to live within the boundaries of the earth?” I believe this is a very serious question, because it is widely believed that at the rate we are going we will max out the earth’s population that it can sustain soon. We have to use our resources wisely, and not do harm to nature. Are we going to be able to do the thing that we have to for mankind to survive on this earth?
My second experience has to do with respecting nature, and realizing how mighty it is and how much we rely on it. When I was real little, probably 8 years old, we had a rope swing from our tree house out in the backyard. And my older brother and cousins use to always climb to the top of the latter and swing down from it and let go before they came back to the tree. I always would go from the bottom step and do a much smaller swing. Being young I was very heavily convinced by my elders and they talked me into swinging from the top even though I was scared to. When I did I never let go of the rope and swung back into the tree, knocked myself out, and gained a concussion. I didn’t take seriously how great nature is and I was careless with it.
When it comes to society with nature today, I believe we need to not jump, and act upon it like the timid scared boy I was. We need to realize that the damages we do to the earth now will affect us later on in life, and that all things are linked. Just because we don’t see any direct effects to the pollution and harm we do to the planet doesn’t mean that we aren’t hurting it, look at global warming. We do need to develop some sort of land ethics, so that we will treat this wonderful planet God put us on the way we should.
