A Sand County Almanac Illustrated
This is an excerpt from the paper...
The work of Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac Illustrated is utterly beautiful from both photographic and poetic perspectives. The book is filled with Leopold’s personal observations and experiences of the environment and all its beauty in Sand County. The numerous photographs that illustrate each section of the book are of high quality and are often stunning and thought-provoking in nature. Each section of the book is devoted to a different month of the year as the author believes each month’s holds its own natural treasures to discover and behold. Each section of the book is also devoted to a different type of environment from marshes and meadows to pastures and woods. Despite the exquisite photographs and different environments, perhaps the most beautiful part of the book is the author’s writing which somehow becomes a part of the environment. Using flowery language, personification, and other tools out of the poet’s toolkit Leopold writes beautiful descriptions of his naturalistic observations and experiences. The impact of this is to make the experience and the writer one with nature almost on a level of some of Walt Whitman’s poetry in Song of Myself. The following description of the “sky dance” that Leopold observes ritually at dusk is ample evidence: “The show begins on the first warm evening in April at exactly 6:50 p.m. The curtain goes up one minute later each day until 1 June, when the time is 7:50. T
. . .
ing, while my line dries again, upon the ways of trout and men. How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook. Even so, I think there is some virtue in eagerness, whether its object prove true or false. How utterly dull would be a wholly prudent man, or trout, or world!”(Leopold 62).
These lessons and experiences of appreciation of nature have greatly enabled me to enrich my own such experiences. My observations occurred on a two-acre wooded property filled with old-growth trees including oaks, maples, and poplars. The acreage is ringed with trees and in the middle of the circle is a grassy field. I armed myself with a thermos of coffee and a small canvas folding chair. I perched myself at the west point of the circle of grass just in front of the trees so I could view the north, south, and east portions of the environment. I arrived at 5:30 as sunrise was predicted for 5:42 the day I was to make my observations. Like Leopold’s farm, I soon found out that I had many tenants in my environment. I first heard birds chirping, one after the other all those in earshot
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Walt Whitmans, Sand County, Almanac Illustrated, sand county, sand county almanac, county almanac illustrated, County Almanac, baby squirrels, section book, almanac illustrated, county almanac, Tamarack Press, section book devoted, book devoted, observations experiences, nuts squirrel, appreciation nature, naturalistic observations,
Approximate Word count = 1275
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
