Tales of Sharing Summertime

Summer flowers in full bloom attract a honey bee and a fly as they both share in the nectar of friendship and nature. Jim Monteleone Photo

With local villages and townships across the country enjoying the summertime, the outdoors in 2016 has become a main theme for many.

People travel from near and far to enjoy the receptive energy that visiting new destinations can offer. I visited a small town USA village last week, East Aurora, New York, and found a town fair atmosphere with Main Street shut down so that local artists, authors, vendors, coffee maker folks and many others could share time in the brilliant sunshine of the day.

There were hanging planters ablaze in flowering, colorful glory, hummingbirds were frequent visitors as I watched from a park bench placed along the way.

Develop New Friends in Nature

Girl Scout and Boy Scout youngsters were on hand – I talked with local adult leaders of these groups, 4H groups were there too, shop displays, stores and small handmade crafts were nourishing the crowds with that feeling of traditional values and friendships, all in the unanimated outdoor world. The festivities were genuine and interconnected with our outdoorsy village and it made me consider that many folks never ever really discover the elements of the nature world that surrounds us every day.

Nature has a certain reverence about it quite like this quaint little village of East Aurora. Probably why many of the folks we spoke with love to live there, plus we also discovered old fashioned grind-your-own coffee bean coffee shops and microbrew factories! Just like old times.

Yet, it seems that modern society and nature have opposing new forces about our diverse ecology. As my better half and I enjoyed this visit – the plants, the sunshine, the people, we watched a few whitetail deer fawns and their mother doe in a distant nearby field as sunset approached.

Connected Through Nature

My mind switched to consider the delicate balance of living organisms that secretly thrive among us in a food chain similar to the chatting and inspiring interconnected conversations on this special Main Street. Both are a part of that natural feedback loop that we never see.

More directly involved in the outdoor world, anglers identify the important energy we need to know more about with that delicate balance in nature. Many anglers use life-restoring water wells in their boats, they promote “catch-measure-release-alive” fishing tournaments and they promote better management policies with controlled minimum size limits and daily bag limits. All good.

Hunters too, are formally educated about wanton waste of killing game not intended for personal consumption or needy food kitchens.

The North American Game Plan sets the policy that provides enriching focus for local states and municipalities about the intended necessary balance of nature, and an elaborate destiny detailed to educate our outdoor community in the manner of respecting the wildlife many of hunt today. Much like many of our forefathers did long ago.

Hiking and camping too, we are taught to carry out what we carry in. Don’t litter. Leave your destination as you found it or make it cleaner and better.

Fishermen can share secrets for success, exchange ideas for better conservation and promote the ecology while promoting the economy at the same time. Forrest Fisher Photo

Anglers and hunters contribute to conservation and enforcement of species-protecting rules and regulations from their pocketbooks more than any other group. The license fee to fish or hunt or trap is heavy. There is no fee levied for most other groups that are allowed to explore flora and fauna in the same woods and on the same waters as anglers and hunters, yet many of those groups are among the largest numbers to promote anti-hunting and anti-fishing campaigns. Maybe they don’t really understand. Let’s leave it there.

All of us as a group, might strive to learn more about how to budget that delicate balance of life in the outdoors that survives in our woods and streams. It may be difficult to bring our Pokémon-oriented, head-down, modern universe, into a responsible understanding of the positive influence we must all hope to develop to maintain the original blueprints of our ecology. It won’t be easy.

Will we need science and technology? Yes, absolutely. Yet, in the beginning, nature did seem to survive without it. Like the enormous beauty that we can find in a cloudless and moonless night, or the intricate moments to be savored during morning sunrise or evening sunset, or the enlightened fear we suddenly realize during an electrical thunderstorm that ravages our hilltops on occasion, there are often many sides to the same coin.

These things in nature interact so dynamically that we allow ourselves the reward to develop unwritten respect and passion for nature. At the same time, responsible sportsmen can enjoy the traditional value a fish dinner or a venison roast – as that too, now that we understand, is all part of the delicate balance we need to manage.  We are part of it.

Enjoy the outdoors-based cosmos of summertime near you and evoke others to get involved in the outdoors.