Where do we go to find nature again?
The woeful yelp, yelp, long howl is heard. Singular. No echo of the pack. No response. Eerie. Sad. It signals the trend of the Monadnock region. Nature has left the area. Oh, look, turkeys. But try to find the roaming bears. The flying V of the geese. Those nuisance creatures defecate on my beachfront or tear down my bird feeders. But look, my lawn has only been fertilized a few times this year. Simply Green has sprayed that stuff that smells like a hospital room, antiseptic for sure.
The roar of the skidder, the screech of the saw, the low rumble to loud howl of the chipper. Replaced in time by lawn tractor and barking Pyrenees or gunfire. Look at our view now! As the logging truck removes any remnants of nature, rumbling up the hill or jack-braking down it, habitat for dozens of species is erased for all time. Any self-respecting mobile creature of the earth is long gone. And with them, the preservation of the area for future generations. Taken from them by the town fathers who routinely (and not for long, for there isn’t much left) permit cuts right to the wetland edge or clear-cut another few hundred acres. What do you suppose is nature’s filter? It is the tree root or the undergrowth, now replaced by Kentucky blue, helped along by poisons deadly to most creatures.
We can no longer enjoy the quiet we once had as cut-pipe bikers throttle past the mountain, announcing their need for attention. Children, really. Roosters cut the wakening dawn like fingers on a blackboard, but louder. Preservation is an action. In the words of Abigail Adams, applied to this topic: “…it must be sought after with ardor and maintained with diligence.”