Love where you live

There is just enough light left at the end of an average workday to gather up your dozing dog, favorite friend or family member, and go for a walk. For a few more weeks, it’s well worth the effort to avail ourselves of the shortening light time before Daylight Savings drops us into early darkness. For a few more weeks, the light gracing the day’s final hours is saturated with golden tones that transform every leaf and blade in our forested landscapes into scenes of near-mystical wonder.

Following hours spent indoors selling merchandise meant for outdoor adventure, I aim to claim some sensory refreshment for myself. Enough options exist nearby that enable me to be strolling a forest trail along a lake in less than ten minutes.

That’s one of the reasons I love living here. And it’s one of the potential losses that most concerns me as rampant development encroaches and threatens our wild landscapes.

I’ve lived in a place where houses, yards, roads and cars defined my roaming grounds. And although nature still finds amazing ways to express herself in such settings, I prefer wilder places, places where ample sky arcs over tree-studded hills with few observable structures; where hawks glide silently overhead and a heron can be glimpsed, poised in statue-like stillness at the edge of a lake; where one can ramble to the ambient sounds of leaf-crunch and chipmunk, tree-frog and chickadee.

If I’m really lucky, there will be an absence of human-generated sounds—autos, lawn mowers, leaf-blowers, power boats—which obscure the more subtle voices of the natural world. And as a result, cleaner air with which to fill my lungs, oxygenate my cells and restore my sense of a freshened spirit.

I often say that we live in the “best-smelling place.” And for now, we do. But faced with the possibilities of a tripled population within the next 25 years, the water, air and aesthetic qualities of this special place are in considerable jeopardy.

There are ways in which we can work to protect the places we love. Walk your river talk on Tuesday, October 18, by attending “Save our Land, Save our Towns” with Tom Hylton, Pennsylvania author of the book by the same title. Hylton will speak on actions communities can take to protect their rural character and quality of life. The event occurs from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the PPL Environmental Learning Center, Route 6, Lake Wallenpaupack. For more information, contact Pike County Conservation District at 570/226-8220 or email pikecd@ptd.net.