The Future Land Ethic: Wyoming Country Lifestyle Blog and Photography

Back before I was a Wyoming photographer or blogger, I worked for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department as the head of their information and publications programs.  One of my favorite monthly tasks was compiling an electronic newsletter, including my own “column.”  I originally wrote the following post for the 2008 WGFD August ENews, before there was a Wyokiddo and before I changed my last name.  This column actually appeared before Outdoor Guy and I were even engaged.  I’m a little shocked that I even put this out there, to be honest.  Thankfully, he didn’t run screaming into the night.  Actually about a week after this was published, he proposed and we began officially planning our lives together.  

I thought it might be fun to resurrect some of my old writings.  Call it Throwback Thursday, blog style.  I hope you enjoy seeing Teresa the naive-yet-hopeful writer and get a giggle out of me from ten years ago.

TM

The Future Land Ethic AKA My Friends Have Babies on the Brain

Now that Outdoor Guy and I have been dating for several months (eight by my count, “uh, a while now,” by his), the inevitable questions have started to come.  How are you going to resolve the long distance thing?  Will you quit your job to move to Ten Sleep?  When are you getting married?  Will you guys have kids?

One friend, who knows me and Outdoor Guy, has had a good deal of fun at my expense pondering our future offspring.  She contends our children will be near-sighted and un-athletic.  She also teases me about my dorky e-newsletter columns and is afraid that particularly nerdy quality will be passed to my progeny.

To be clear, my future is still up in the air at this point.  I’ve got life mapped out until approximately September (which is in less than 3 weeks, so not long).  But I haven’t thought much beyond that.  I’m enjoying life as it is right now, writing dorky e-newsletter columns and coveting a pink fly-vest at Sportsman’s Warehouse.

I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around the concept of a little person running around this earth that is half me.  But being teased about my future kids has made for some funny e-mail exchanges as I began contemplating the potential outcomes of a Punnet square for me and Outdoor Guy for various physical and mental characteristics.

Skin tone and athletic prowess aside, there are a few things I’m positive of when it comes to my future children – they’re going to be inundated with all things outdoors and wild, and given every opportunity to experience this landscape and the wonders it holds from a very early age.  Agriculture, wildlife, nature, history and heritage– these are the priority topics for my kids.

My kids will know that hamburger comes from the cattle in the back pasture, not from a cardboard box at McDonald’s.  They’ll know just how much work it takes to earn a living from the land, lessons learned from a sunburnt nose from a week pruning vines at Table Mountain Vineyards or bruises from a kicking calf at the Child’s branding.  Brenda, Patrick, Stacy, Ralph, Dennis and Olin will be held up as examples of agricultural producers doing good things for their land and animals and will help teach my kids a solid and lasting land ethic.

My kids will know the difference between a muley and a white-tailed deer.  They’ll know how to survive in bear, lion and wolf country and to leave baby animals alone.  They’ll learn to respect wildlife and understand how blessed we are to live in a place where there’s still critters to see and room to roam.  My kids will also learn early on that nature is tough and the natural world isn’t always pretty.  Wildlife can starve to death in tough winters, deer get hit on the highways and the bigger animals eat the little animals.  They’ll understand the thrill and satisfaction of hunting and fishing always comes at the price of the life of the prey.

Most of all priorities and tradeoffs – winning the global race requires fossil fuels that affect our lands and our wildlife.  Strip malls and housing developments mean cool new clothes to wear to school and new restaurants to eat at, but a loss of open space and habitat for deer and elk.

I know I don’t have the answers.  But maybe the next generation, taught all the great things we know, will.