Apples of Gold
I walked though the early darkness; the trees standing in stark contrast to a cloud laden sky. My nightly trek to check the deer in the north woods took longer than I antisaped.
After the heat of August and September, I enjoy cool days of December. A few fakes of snow drifted through barren branches. I hurried along crunching dead leaves underfoot their scent rising like perfume. Tomorrow was Christmas. I had never lost the excitement or the wonder of the day. The anticipation of Christmas makes my heart beat faster even if I am a grownup child.
The chilled air was refreshing but the tempur has fallen 10 degrees in the last hour. The chill is beginning to penetrate my thick clothing. The stream over the hill is rushing to escape the ice forming at its edges. A race it will soon lose. In April, the water flows fast and furious. Today it is a fast trickle the water just covering the soles of my gumboots.
On the hill to my right, a coyote howls at the unseen moon. His brothers’ counters from my lift. Both concealed by brush. Even though I know coyotes rarely attack humans, the hair raises on the back of my neck. I quicken my steps. Dipping below the horizon the sun assures me of a fair day with its rising. The north wind tells another story, its breath heavy with snow. Maybe tomorrow we will wake to the sight of a pristine white world.
There is nothing as peaceful as a silent snow storm its flakes gently floating down to cover the flawed earth. Each flake like people of a different design.
At the back of the house, the birds huddle around the feeders. Each one wering for ...
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...d destitute individuals. Every investigation always came to a dead end. A conserve estimate surmised that over the years the donor had given somewhere around twenty million.
My wife and I continue the philanthropy James Denver and Sarah Ann Aikman started in 1910. Each year we take out one apple and sell it through a private organization. The money then is given as instructed in the note. At this time, we have given away several apples, yet there are still eight in the sack. And so once again God has proven His word to be true.
‘He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto
The Lord; and that which he hath given will He pay him again.’
Oh, and the gold coins? Through we have spent more than a hundred there are still thirty in the bag. Our reward for doing what The Lord has asked.
Merry Christmas
Dani and I stand in the sun waiting for the “men” to catch up. The view was worth Quill’s whining and navigating through the snow. The breeze catches in the bright green and gold of new Aspen leaves whispering around the lake. The Pine trees scent the air and bask in the sun to steal its warmth from the forest below. The trees are a dark canopy along our path permitting only a few patches of the raised finely mulched trail to a beam or two of sun. Framed like a photo three pencil lead gray peaks rise above a lower sweeping curve of pines. They look close enough to walk over the ridge and touch them. Boulders precariously cling to the side of the mountains. The perfect deep blue early summer sky is the perfect backdrop.
Singer’s belief that everyone should give away all excess wealth to eliminate as much suffering as possible conflicts with the idea of competition and, therefore, reduces the productivity of human civilization. Peter Singer, a professor of moral philosophy, stated in his essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” that it is everyone’s duty to participate in philanthropy since it is morally wrong to not help someone who is suffering. Singer thoroughly explained the details of the “duty” of philanthropy: “we ought to give until we reach the level of marginal utility - that is, the level at which, by giving more, I would cause as much suffering to myself or my dependents as I would relieve by my gift.” If this philosophy is followed, and the poor beneficiary experienced the same level of comfort as the wealthy benefactor, then what incentive would the beneficiary have for
I stepped out of the chilly November air and into the warmth of my home. The first snowfall of the year had hit early in the morning, and the soft, powdery snow provided entertainment for hours. As I laid my furry mittens and warm hat on the bench to dry, I was immediately greeted with the rich scent of sweet apple pie, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, and the twenty-pound turkey my mother was preparing for our Thanksgiving feast.
The Native American folktale “Coyote Finishes His Work” demonstrates the origin and result of ones foolishness and pride by drawing a parallel between the life of the Coyote and the life of a human. Coyote in the story has done many impressive things to help humans, and is described as being a “wise and powerful” being. However, the story also delineates Coyote’s flaws of pride and foolishness by describing his love of tricks, and how they at times hurt himself or others around him. This is important for the author to explain to the reader because it helps the reader understand that one’s importance and power does not make them perfect, nor does perfection come simply by gaining power and knowledge. The Chief visits Coyote when he sees that
I prepared myself for the upcoming adventurous day. I set out along a less-traveled path through the woods leading to the shore. I could hear every rustle of the newly fallen leaves covering the ground. The brown ground signaled the changing of seasons and nature's way of preparing for the long winter ahead. Soon these leaves would be covered with a thick layer of snow. The leaves still clinging to the trees above displayed a brilliant array of color, simultaneously showing the differences of each and the beauty of the entire forest.
Three inches of fresh snow fell last night, creating a blanket of freshness that reflects the last rays of moonlight. As we drive into our property we see fresh deer tracks and my heart starts pumping, I have been away from Wisconsin for a few months and this morning is the first time I entered these woods since September. A few hundred yards into the woods we jump three deer walking the road. They bound off into the darkness in flashes of brown silhouetted by snow. We park...
I was the first person to ski off of the chairlift that day; arriving at the summit of the Blackcomb Mountain, nestled in the heart of Whistler, Canada. It was the type of day when the clouds seemed to blanket the sky, leaving no clue that the sun, with its powerful light, even existed anymore. It was not snowing, but judging by the moist, musty, stale scent in the air, I realized it would be only a short time before the white flakes overtook the mountain. As I prepared myself to make the first run, I took a moment to appreciate my surroundings. Somehow things seemed much different up here. The wind, nonexistent at the bottom, began to gust. Its cold bite found my nose and froze my toes. Its quick and sudden swirling movement kicked loose snow into my face, forcing me to zip my jacket over my chin. It is strange how the gray clouds, which seemed so far above me at the bottom, really did not appear that high anymore. As I gazed out over the landscape, the city below seemed unrecognizable. The enormous buildings which I had driven past earlier looked like dollhouses a child migh...
The snow that was predicted to be several inches by the end of the weekend quickly piled up to around eight inches by that evening. At times, the snow was falling so heavily you could hardly see the streetlights that glistened like beacons in a sea of snow. With the landscape draped in white, the trees hangi...
Walking, there is no end in sight: stranded on a narrow country road for all eternity. It is almost dark now. The clouds having moved in secretively. When did that happen? I am so far away from all that is familiar. The trees are groaning against the wind’s fury: when did the wind start blowing? Have I been walking for so long that time hysterically slipped away! The leaves are rustling about swirling through the air like discarded post-it notes smashing, slapping against the trees and blacktop, “splat-snap”. Where did the sun go? It gave the impression only an instant ago, or had it been longer; that it was going to be a still and peaceful sunny day; has panic from hunger and walking so long finally crept in? Waking up this morning, had I been warned of the impending day, the highs and lows that I would soon face, and the unexpected twist of fate that awaited me, I would have stayed in bed.
As the sky begins to brighten to a gray, and the stars that were so brilliant just seconds ago begin to grow dim, my imagination starts to picture things moving that are really nothing but shadows in the trees. It is as if the shadows are racing around trying to find their owners before the sun peeks its gleaming face up over the horizon. A deer jumps from its bed, scaring the horses and pumping a quart of adrenaline through my system, as my pistol jumps to my hand. Once I realize it is just a deer, I put my pistol back in its holster.
In situations where $200 donations could save lives, “there will always be another child whose life you could save for $200.” (Singer). In Singer’s piece, the focus lies on the global community and what the $200 does for the child in Africa rather than the one across the street and this is where the responsibility is needed to be taken up. By focusing on smaller actions within the smaller communities, an individual who handles responsibilities in charity, should have the “main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves…to rise the aids by which they may rise; to assist” (Carnegie). This affect in the community becomes concentrated as a mass of successful individuals who have learned to pay it forward and than branch out to share experience.
I brush my eyes awake, feeling the cold seeping in from my window. It’s 9 AM and it’s winter in Minnesota. Feeling sleepy, I stand up and go outside. I love the winter air. It always refreshes my mind and there’s just a cold bite to it that I enjoy. Coming back inside, I boot up my computer, hoping to enjoy it a little before heading out. The winter days swim together, phasing throughout my mind, and I fall asleep again, or I have woken up.
captive by a sheath of frost, as were the glacial branches that scraped at my windows, begging to get in. It is indeed the coldest year I can remember, with winds like barbs that caught and pulled at my skin. People ceaselessly searched for warmth, but my family found that this year, the warmth was searching for us.
The sunless sky covered the woods over the treetops which created a canopy over my head. The crimson and auburn foliage was a magnificent sight, as this was the season known as Fall. There was a gentle breeze, creating the single sound of rustling leaves. The leaves appeared as though they were dying to fall out of the tree and join their companions on the forest floor. Together with pine needles and other flora the leaves formed a thick springy carpet for me to walk upon.
“A Bird came down the Walk,” was written in c. 1862 by Emily Dickinson, who was born in 1830 and died in 1886. This easy to understand and timeless poem provides readers with an understanding of the author’s appreciation for nature. Although the poem continues to be read over one hundred years after it was written, there is little sense of the time period within which it was composed. The title and first line, “A Bird came down the Walk,” describes a common familiar observation, but even more so, it demonstrates how its author’s creative ability and artistic use of words are able to transform this everyday event into a picture that results in an awareness of how the beauty in nature can be found in simple observations. In a step like narrative, the poet illustrates the direct relationship between nature and humans. The verse consists of five stanzas that can be broken up into two sections. In the first section, the bird is eating a worm, takes notice of a human in close proximity and essentially becomes frightened. These three stanzas can easily be swapped around because they, for all intents and purposes, describe three events that are able to occur in any order. Dickinson uses these first three stanzas to establish the tone; the tone is established from the poet’s literal description and her interpretive expression of the bird’s actions. The second section describes the narrator feeding the bird some crumbs, the bird’s response and its departure, which Dickinson uses to elaborately illustrate the bird’s immediate escape. The last two stanzas demonstrate the effect of human interaction on nature and more specifically, this little bird, so these stanzas must remain in the specific order they are presented. Whereas most ...