Sand County Almanac Analysis

January
In January of Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold follows the tracks of a skunk on an early Spring treatise through the wood to determine its destination and learn its purpose. As the trail leads him from underbrush to glen he observes myriad tales echoed in the landscape. He is privy to a field mouse as it scurries between the sun melted breaks in the subarctic cause ways which wind their way to his foodstores. He watches as a hawk sworrls above, and he likens to a king fisher. And he is atune to the stirrings of a squirrel from the pinkish urinations it had left behind as a marker to its pas snowy scriptures tell where the lattices of a rabbit and an owl had overlapped in a background of survival...of life.
Leopold is methodical
in his observations, yet he preserves the child-like aspect of nature. His writings and descriptions posess a sort of wide eyed wonder that captures the innocence or purity of wilderness and reader, unlike Throeau, who is a bit more esoteric.

Here Leopold is a spectator of nature. As much a part of as he is apart from it. Not unlike a baseball fan without whom, the sport would not exist. I feel as though Leopold is aware of a remoteness As he is lead further the struggle of life is unveiled to him as that he like Thoreau is fishing the same stream of consciousness in hopes of closing the gap.

February
February brings Leopold to the harvesting of wood for a fire and acquaints it to understanding what separates a man of nature from a man of civilization. He sse how one who deos not cut his wood does not truly know what it is to be warm, and he describes fire as the realease of sunlight wehich has been absorbed by the oak during its lifetime.
As he cuts into the oak with his saw he correlates each layer penetrated to a period in man's history and then recalls each historical moment with passion and remorse. He uses the oak metaphorically as a recordkeeper of both natural history and anthropologic history with the growth rings as place marks.

May
In his essay for May in the "Sand County Almanac", Leopold relates the story of the upland plover.
In Wisconsin, he says, the arrival of the plover in May is the final proof that spring has arrived. The plover flies over 4000 mile to return from Argentina each year. The plover returns to lay eggs and bring up the chicks. The chicks are fully grown in 30 days and by August they will be able to fly. Leoplold says that in the early 1900's Wisconsin almost lost the plover to hunters and the post-victorian taste for plover-on-toast. He says,"The belated protection of the federal migratory bird laws came just in time."
QUOTES:

"Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

"That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics. That land yields a cultural harvest is a fact long known, but lately forgotten."
June
The Alder Fork-A Fishing Idyl Describes fishing trip....
-First day disappointing -water low "teeter-snipe pattered about in what last year were trout riffles", and warm. - "asked for trout, got only chub" -That night, they remember a fork upstream, which was narrow and deep and spring fed. This was the Alder Fork. They fish it the next day. -First trout caught immeadiately. -Second requires deliberation... -bush over trout's head -must wait for wind to come up, to disguise line and fly. -with perfect execution, he is caught. -with perfect execution, he is caught. -event causes reflection on nature of | Forward fish and men..."ready, nay eager, to sieze upon whatever new things some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time". "...and how we rue our haste". -Third fish is ultimate challange -"canopied in greenness", casting impossible. must be caught by drifting fly downstream from above. -does this from 30'above. -sets hook "imprudently pulls trout through alder stems..." "..no prudent man is a fisherman" -Fish were not large, chance to catch them was. Memory will be large. For awhile, he "had forgotten it would ever again be aught but morning on the
fork".
October
October, Smoky Gold.
Here, Leopold describes a day spent hunting grouse among the falling smoky gold tamaracks in Adams county. Tamaracks change from green to yellow when the frost comes, and empty stems stand pink against a hill in the sunlight.

Leopold realizes his dog knows better then he does were the grouse are hidding. He (the dog) stops, gives you a sideways glance asking "are you ready?" then at that moment he flushes a grouse. Leopold laughs at the cars who speed by his hunting truck heading for cities. These people don't see the wonders in the country side that a hunter sees. He encounters an abandond farm were he wonders how many crops have been grown, and how many washes have been scrubbed on the washboard outside before they counln't pay the mortgage and were evicted.

Back to the hunt. A grouse drums his wings, my dog grins as we note his direction. "That fellow we agree, needs some excersise; we shall look him up presently."