Welcome to Litsy!

(Don‘t make me pose, dad! I‘m tired!)

A gentle naturalist classic. He can be a little poetic, but mostly he quietly talks about what he‘s seen, and more passionately talks about what he thinks we are losing (It‘s a 1949 view. He underestimated) There is a lot of naturalist experience behind his writing. Recommended to those interested in the naturalist literary tradition.

“I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves meant a hunters‘ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”

I‘ve read several books more than twice: A Christmas Carol, Stephen King‘s Dark Tower series, Gift from the Sea

Cover art is often what initially attracts me to a book. I bought The City of Brass because the cover of book 2 , The Kingdom of Copper, is so beautiful.

#THOUGHTFULTHURSDAY

If you‘re looking for a book where you fall in love with nature, this is for you. Leopold introduced many to conservation and the idea of ecology, or a “land ethic”. The almanac was filled with beautiful stories with observations so descriptive, it‘s like you were in Wisconsin with him.

1. Oddly (being from Wisconsin) my mom named me after two hurricanes.
2. I am tankful for a quick storm, safe friends and family and cool weather during a power outage.

Forgoing the flowers today - thought it would be fun to share the position our trampoline is now in 😂🤷‍♀️ could be worse.

#ThankfulThursday
@KathyWheeler @RamsFan1963 @TheRiehlDeal @hannah-leeloo @Susanita @suvata

This was my second time reading through this book. The first was in 2003 while I was studying philosophy in undergrad. Although Leopold wrote these essays and sketches on ecology and early environmental ethics 80 years ago, they still remain poignant and retain their poetic exhortation to value the land in its entirety for itself and not measure nature in economic terms. This is also great reading while camping if you ever get the itch.

"Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth?"

In the mood for some nature writing, so I‘m reading this. I‘ll probably go to sleep soon though.

Decided to go through my shelves today and collect my TBR for #nonfictionnovember

Anyone else participating?

All through reading this book, I kept sending messages to my nephew, a newly pinned Eagle Scout, telling him to read it.

Man always kills the thing he loves, and so we the pioneers have killed our wilderness. Some say we had to. Be that as it may, I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?

We grieve only for what we know. The erasure of Silphium from western Dane County is no cause for grief if one knows it only as a name in a botany book.

Mechanized man, oblivious of floras, is proud of his progress in cleaning up the landscape on which, willy-nilly, he must live out his days. It might be wise to prohibit at once all teaching of real botany and real history, lest some future citizen suffer qualms about the floristic price of his good life.

Tell me of what plant-birthday a man takes notice, and I shall tell you a good deal about his vocation, his hobbies, his hay fever, and the general level of his ecological education.

Aldo Leopoldo has some great commentary on nature and conservation in his books and essays. #trivial #quotsy #quotsydec17

Back at work and feeling a bit better! Lunchtime reading pictured above.

I feel worse today, but I have to go back to work this afternoon if at all possible for my last orientation meeting, so I'm trying to rest and rally. Maybe I'll finish the second half of this one today.

I've missed a few months, and I'm just breezing through several essays in here right now. Leopold's pulling me out of my rut! Win for the nature writers!

"Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language. The quality of the crane lies, I think, in this higher gamut, as yet beyond the reach of words."
This book deserves to be slowly savored, and thus that is what I've been doing.

"That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics. That land yields a cultural harvest is a fact long known, but latterly often forgotten." --from foreword, March 4, 1948

I love coming back to this each month! ❤️

It's the beginning of a new month, and for me that means a new section of Leopold's almanac! I'm enjoying little dips into this book as the months change!

"Perhaps the most serious obstacle impending the evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land"

I've found that I can read while doing my stretches or jogging on the elliptical (for personal health reasons, not a doomed resolution)! Pretty fascinating to follow the travels of an atom through nature in this book while stretching, too--it brought up all of these thoughts on how those atoms work through my body as well! I'm loving this book. I need more nature writing in my life.

I guess it's good that I forgot to post for #dreamingofacolderclimate because this is also my choice for #booksaboutnature ! Although I'm not so much dreaming of a colder climate, I suppose--rather, a different perspective? This book was recommended to me by my aunt, and I've decided to read the almanac portion of the essays with each month (so this picture is from "January"). I'm finding this book really beautiful and fascinating! #readjanuary