Yes, I am where the compass points!

To be living in the northwoods, at long last, is perhaps a fact that makes me happier than I have ever been in my life. To find myself surrounded, in this evidently conservative state, with people who have similar interests and values is something I would have never imagined was possible. 

Below you can find a picture of a Luna Moth that I took just yesterday on the lodge at my work. So beautiful!

“To attempt a proof that non-humans communicate would not only be degrading—imagine a book purporting to prove that blondes can think—it would be silly, like proving the existence of gravity, love, death, or physical existence. It would be written in two words—pay attention—or better, in one—listen.” -Derrick Jensen

As soon as I rolled my car out of the grocery store parking lot in Minocqua and saw two loons looking at me curiously from the lake I knew that I had been welcomed back by a forgiving ecosystem. The eagle that soared over my head, as nonchalant as a race horse knowing it is beautiful, sealed my knowledge that I was truly home, and made me sad that I would be leaving it in two months.

My new job is wonderful, I am surrounded by naturalists and people who care deeply for the planet. My first day I met someone involved with the Timber Wolf Alliance who talked with passion about the wolf hunt that is set to happen here in Wisconsin. When I think of that hunt all I can see in my mind is the image of the majestic wolf that ran in front of my car when I was living in northern Minnesota last year. The way the eyes had a fire in them that seemed to speak of many things I could never truly understand while sitting in a vehicle. Of days spent running over the hard crusty snow of the north, hunting deer, howling to members of a pack...ahh it represents all that I strive for as a human.

“Until I heard my mother shouting through the fog

It turned out to be howling of a dog

Or a wolf, to be exact

the sound sent shivers down my back

But I was drawn into the pack and before long

they allowed me to join in and sing their song.

So from the cliffs and highest hills

Yeah we would gladly get our fill

Howling endlessly and shrilly at the dawn

And I lost the taste for judging right from wrong...”

-Blitzen Trapper

Perhaps it is what the wolf represents that is really my issue with the wolf hunt. A species demonized for thousands of years that is social, loving to their young, and unmistakably WILD. The inherent fear associated with the species is unwarranted, at best, savage in truth. There is no real REASON to kill a wolf except that you want to kill it. The effects they have on deer and livestock populations are trivial and well documented (when it comes to deer) to actually be beneficial to the herd as a whole. 

To the right you can see a picture of the porcupine quills I found in the woods and intend to make into jewelry! 

“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.” -Aldo Leopold

I sit here, with little stress planning out lessons for students I have never met, but for subjects I have taught so frequently that I barely give them a second thought. Orienteering, survival, things of that nature. I am honestly most stressed out right now about learning to drive a 15 passenger van! But hey, if that is my biggest worry we aren't doing too badly right?