Day 282 – Growth is Simple
Growth is simple. It seems that when you have the basic ingredients in place, growth starts to occur naturally. I have tried many times in my life at basic horticulture. Primary growing things like tomatoes. When I get the bare essentials, such as nutrients, sunlight, and water, correct, the plants grow. They grow at the […]
Day 281 – Perseverance
Looking back at my life, I have only really come to one solid conclusion about what leads to success. Although there are always many factors, the one ingredient all my successful experiences have had is perseverance. This leads me to this conclusion: if you want to have success at anything – the most important thing […]
Day 280 – Building a Working Group
There is a harsh reality that you just cannot do great things all by yourself. You may be able to come up with a concept and perhaps do a bit of a test pilot, but the second you start to try to have an impact, then your individual efforts will not be enough. You will […]
Day 279 – The Best Made Plans
When I was a young man I had a few opportunities to plough a field with my grandfather. We would turn the soil with the remnants of last year’s crop into the ground and prepare for next season’s planting. One day during our plowing we upset a large mouse nest, and about 15 mice when […]
Day 278 – Two Ways of Seeing a River
This will be the last day of my week-long trip into the wild. I will be heading back along the main fork of the Gila River, most likely in the hot, blazing sun. My feet will be wet, my skin scorched, and blisters on top of my blisters. I will have seen this river twice […]
Day 277 – Nature’s High Festival
This is day 6 of my wilderness sojourn. Inevitably, something will have gone wrong by now. We expected a hot and dry hike, but I imagine nature will have thrown something else at us. Who knows what it will be? I have experienced fire, wind, hale, freak snow storms, a stampede of elk, and one […]
Day 276 – That’s the Way it Was This Morning
This is Day 5 of my wilderness journey. By this time, I will be prodding my traveling companions out of their sleeping bags. I will be boiling water for breakfast and waiting for the sun to come up. I will be reminded of the first chapter of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. Here is a passage […]
Day 275 – This Land is Your Land
This is Day 4 of my wanderin’ in the wilderness. I will have had a good solid day of hiking behind me and one difficult sleep on the hard ground. I will have wished I brought a better pillow, and then wish I had not brought a bunch of things as I lift the heavy […]
Day 274 – The Bucket is No Metaphor
This is Day 3 of my week in the wilderness. By this time I am on the trail and am no longer connected to the world. Hopefully, I am enjoying myself by this time and am still fresh and excited with a bounce in my step. As I leave behind the road, the parking lot, […]
Day 273 – The Road Not Taken
This is Day 2 of my wilderness trip. By this time, I will be in transit to the base camp, where we will be doing our last-minute preparations and testing before we ‘take the plunge’ as they say. Every little consideration for every potential problem or issue will now have to take a back seat […]