My Walk with Nature

Every night Dad would check me for ticks, little black and red bugs that would embed themselves into your skin and drink your blood. Dad said that if you let a tick get under your skin, it will just sit there and eat away at you. We all loved the lake, especially my second oldest brother Garrett. He could fish with the best of them, and would keep everything he caught. For him, nothing was too big or too small to take to the fish house and add another stain to the counter.

Stan was excited because he was going fishing. He would occasionally reach into his pocket to show off his bait. It was an earthworm that he had caught the night before. Several times he’d reach into his upper left shirt pocket, remove and dangle this dried up but still very much lively night crawler. Later after finally arriving at the park and locating a grill, he was permitted to go fishing on one of the islands shallow inland lakes, my mother was much to nervous to let all three of us go to the other side of the Island and fish the infamous Detroit River.

On the trip back from Iron Pond, we saw 38 white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), 4 moose (Alces alces), and over 100 snow-shoe rabbits (Lepus americanus). Several of the deer jumped over the hood of the jeep. The snow-shoe rabbits practically go crazy when they see the lights of the jeep, hopping everywhere. Many jumped into the path of the jeep before we could stop, and died. Luckily the moose didn't jump.

My pessimism deepened as I listened to my classmates chatter in awe about deer on the hillside and heard our professor mention a toxic waste controversy. One deer stood majestically atop the hill, its dark, shadowy outline nearly transparent in the dense fog, while two others eyed us with less interest than we eyed them. I had seen more deer on a public golf course the day before. One of my classmates began her narrative aloud, adding to the worldly engagements I wished to remove myself from. Moving on, I passed under a stone arch onto a trail where I sat and wrote down my thoughts; drawing ... ... middle of paper ... ...each, looking out to sea.

On the lively river banks I see great blue herring and there attempt to catch a fish for their dinner. They gracefully fly with their beautiful wings arching in the sun to silvery points. Inside the cabin there is nothing for entertainment except two old black and white TV’s and an outdated telephone, which is covered in a year’s worth of dust. Sometimes I like to head out to the thick wood on the other side of the river, to look for exciting animals and interesting leaves or stones on the forest floor. On some days I feel like running through the corn fields to watch the fluffy clouds slowly drift across the light blue sky.

Redwall is about a young mouse named Matthias. He lived in an abbey called Redwall. Redwall was a nice, peaceful place until a rat called Cluny the Scourge came with his horde and tried to take it over. The night before the citizens of Redwall knew that Cluny was coming, Matthias and Brother Alf had caught a giant fish that was big enough to feed all of the animals inside of Redwall so they had a big feast. When Matthias and Constance the badger were taking some of the animals who lived outside of the abbey home, they saw Cluny and his horde rolling past in a hay cart so they went back to the abbey to warn everyone.

As I sit here, I have the desire to take a deer home with me. Somewhere in these vast woods a buck is stepping, with no warning that today is the day that I capture him. There is an ominous crow cackle, one that any protagonist would consider as a warning, I consider it an opportunity. My deer did not accept this warning; at least it was not shown. Today was opening day for bow season in Michigan, which is the most peaceful of the opening days, with the exception of a few hunters who are frustrated with their archery skills and resort to gun powder.

Undeterred, one begins to chew on my shoulder blade and prickers dig into my shins. I can see my tent across the pond, 100 yards as the crow flies, probably a mile walk around the edge. I decide to take off my clothes, leave them on this rock by the shore, swim across and come back for my things later in my canoe. Even though the whine of the deer flies’ wings beating around my head intensifies, I just stare at the water. It is only two feet deep here at the edge, but it is so dark that I cannot see the bottom.

I trudged on despite the circumstances, complaining frequently, not about my cold feet, but about not being given a chance to take a shot at the deer, I called. Curtis says he did not hear me call the deer. It was dusk by the time we got to the deer. Hurriedly, we gutted the deer in the field to make it lighter to carry back to the truck. Coyotes started howling around this time, which put me on edge.

I ended up catching 2 more barracuda and that was about it. After the long hour and a half trip back to the dock the captain took what we caught and skinned so we could grille it out. As he was skinning it I could hear the sea gulls floating in the water right under the table just waiting for any little scrap to fall so they could get a quick easy meal. Deep sea fishing has to be one of those things I will never forget and hope to do again in the future or even buy a boat of my own and do it myself.