Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac

Aldo Leopold was a man with a vision. Leopold saw the land as a complex living being, interactions between each tree, each bird, as vital as the organs that comprised the body of that being. This makes sense since Leopold was an ecologist, among many other things. Throughout his essays in the wonderful ‘A Sand County Almanac' Leopold shares his vision, his passion, for the land. The essays we transport the reader from the snowy forests of Wisconsin to the craggy slopes of picturesque New Mexico, all the while we learn and grow with Leopold. In the climax, Leopold sees the fierce green fire as it dies the old mother wolf's eyes, a wolf that he himself shot. Leopold has a revelation in this moment, realizing that the wolf he had killed

We had lived in the small bayside fishing village of Fields Landing since I had been in the first grade, now in the third grade, I was moving. I was not sad to say goodbye to the mudflats and train tracks of Fields Landing. The farm was in a ‘town' called Larabee, across the Eel River. This was the place where I learned what land is. Before having moved around, I had witnessed the terraformed man-made land, city parks, and trim grass filled lawns, I knew what that was. This place was new, wild, ready to be explored. We turned onto a gravel road that was narrow, yet opened, and to the left, I saw an expanse of green fields and fruit trees. This was our farm. Over the next few years of my life, I explored every inch of the surrounding land. My parents tried out farming, my mom is the forever young hippy at heart, growing corn, zucchini, and anything else she could plant, all the while pursuing a degree at Humboldt State. Impressionable youth, I remember the seasons. The hot summer that I spent days hiking up a tributary creek with my dog. I would throw big rocks into the glassy creek, my dog jumping in after them. I had to stop when she threw up water, having swallowed too much. The field, late summer and October sun drying out everything, and the corn smashed from a black bear who ate his fill and then rolled around in a giant circle. Winter, the ice on the windows, sometimes snowflakes. Winters were cold, the zucchini plants dying, the look of the fields in winter, a shadow of the