Its great to see a small cell of humanity struggling in the face of the common trend to be stupid
After reading some the publications of a past era the amount of responseability awarded kids was amazeing!
Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn mabe been fictional characters but they were modeld off what some kids were like in them days.
I really liked a Harding press book "Fifty Years a Hunter and Trapper by E.N. Woodcock" the whole idea of knowing what your limitations were and pitting your self in nature is enlightening.
One my childhood favorites was my side the mountain.
The de-naturization of american youth is a pity, its actually a crime, ignorance of nature will get to the point that we shouldent use that as a excuse for what we do today,
I did travel down to the States a few years back and the urban sprawl was alarming what was once pastures and what few wooded places and haymeddows, crop ground are all now gone, you dont notice it but its creeping across the beautifull places like a cancer.
This was all throughout Eastern Colorado and North Western Kansas.
Where are the grouse and pheasants and other wildlife to live and reproduce?
We soon wont have any wild places left to carry a firearm in a open and un-molested manner and the few wild places that still are you wont be allowed to do so on public lands.
I know we all want to live off at the edge of civilization but there are going to have to be safe guards designating some areas as agricultrial only areas, or restrictions on oversized farm factories, Ive visited my childhood area and downward slide tha has taken plcae, where there was nice pasture and haymeddows wooded creek bottoms is now all denuded of anything natural, the soil is all leveld and soil is erodeing into where the creed was, the pasture and haymeddow is now a Huge Hog confinement facility they have saturated the ground water with so much nitrates the well water round there is not safe to drink, the ditches still exist but the fence rows and plumb brush and ground cover is gone, they now farm from road to road every square yard of land is utilized, not for the beterment to the surrounding area and definately not condusive for the prairiechicken and wildturkey that once flourished there, no cover for wild game that we once had. I know its how modern business works, problem is the smaller farms and ranches have been bought up by investment firms and they are playing monopoly with our heratage, too bad its come to the point that the average family can just barely hang on to a small farm, they have to work 2 and some times 3 jobs to augment ther income to hang on to the place, modern business environment has made it very tough if not impossible to operate as they did in the day's prior to the 1980's.
Big business will always exploit economic advantages (economic collapse of farms/ranches) buying land cheap and horeing it out to the highest bidder to hell with whats advantages were before they started
who cares about the old growth cotton wood trees planted by some homesteader they were clear cut for pallet wood, all the neat history gone, one the last year We had our place I was out hunting prairie chicken when crossing through a draw I kicked up a old rusty spur, I stuck it in my hip pocket and later on the dash board of my truck, a neighbor saw that rusty relic and stated that it was a old U.S. Calvary spurr.
Well that ravine is now leveld and thers a hog confienment facility there today, weeds growing were bigbluestem, indiangrass, brome once gave cover to some the best hunting grounds I'd seen in SouthDakota/Nebraska.