MY FATHER LOVED NATURE

When we were young children, my father would take the family to a lake for the weekend during the summer, where we learned to swim and splash to our hearts content. In the fall, he would take us to a country area, where we walked down some woodland road, hearing only the rustle of the many colored leaves as we crashed our way through them. When we finally acquired a cottage in the northern area--miles from town, it was wonderful. I did get car sick the last few miles, but I grew out of it. All was forgotten as we arrived--after another several miles by boat.

Father dug a spring out of the hillside (from a stream above), where we children would be sent to carry drinking water. I used to love to sit in the stillness and watch the little bugs and spiders stride across, and under the water. We enjoyed a big farm horse named Tom, who dragged large logs from the woods, where the men had prepared them to make our log home. We canoed in the swamp areas on either side of our long beach, and saw herons and other large birds, and swam in the water, sometimes shrieking as a large snake followed us. The deer came down to drink by the swamp at first light and at dusk, and the haunting loons called in the evening. We thought it cool to see the babies on the mother's back. Our evenings were spent playing games.

I grew up a little, and as a lazy teenager, when my father asked me to accompany him for a walk in the woods early one morning to check his property, I said no. You can imagine my devastation to hear that he had seen a large moose. I have seen Elk in Banff National Park, but it is not the same as seeing animals in "their" natural space.

I will always be grateful to my father because he gifted me with a love of nature. Has someone introduced you to that magical world?