My kayak sits outside my office window balanced on two long boards which keep it from killing the grass beneath. It’s been there for some time. A few weeks anyway. In this time I’ve not given up nature, the outdoors or my world as it satisfies my crazy mind. I’ve only traded, temporarily the water for the land.

You see, the land on which I live and the paths I walk are something quite unique. Here stand miniature mountains that stood solid against a giant glacier some 10,000 years ago. This place is the borderland between the driftless zone of the upper mid-west and lands once ravaged by ice. It is here where Aldo Leopold wrote his Sand County Almanac. It’s where a young Scottish kid named Jon Muir kicked up his boots and fine tuned his senses before heading west to stand agasp at the sight of El Capitan. This is where I am, standing among the dancing waves of restored prairies, surrounded by quartzite cliffs, listening to the rush hour din of Canada Geese and Sandhill Cranes rising from nearby marshlands. I’ve not left kayaking or nor have I abandon my love of the sea. But for a time I’m simply placing one foot in front of another. I am reacquainting my mind with things close to home while following my feet on a tour of the land.

Read On

• Celebrate Nature
• The Spring Green Preserve

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