Once uppon a time, for the first 30 years of my life, nature had a little different meaning to me than it does now. I had a rather interesting childhood, growing up in a small valley in Nevada in the summers, and here in Quincy the rest of the year. I don't remember much of Quincy, but the little valley will always hold many fond memories.

I wasn't allowed to hang out in the house much, getting kicked outside quite often. Kept me away from vegitating in front of the television I guess. Once outside I spent quite a bit of time ecploring the woods around both houses. In nevada we were in the middle of UNR's field station, a protected (gated) zone east of the Tahoe basin and just south of Slide mountain. I spent almost every day inventing adventures in the wilderness there in Nevada, catching grasshoppers for fishing, monitoring my little dam in the creek by the cabin, and exploring.

I remember finding my first dead fir tree. The needles were all red, and not knowing it had died, I thought it was some kind of strange new tree with red needles. I'd never seen one like that before, and thought of myself as a great explorer, possibly discovering a new kind of tree.

I spent quite a bit of time fishing in Franktown creek. Eventually I got to the point I didn't even need a pole, bait, or a hook, as I could simply reach in the water and kind of tickle the fish, then swoop it out of the water onto the shore. There were quite a few beaver ponds in that creek, and all of them were full of rainbow trout. I remember one particular time edging my way out into the pond on an aspen log, trying to get to a better fishing spot, when I fell in. In the process of crawling out of the water, I caught a fish. Unbelieveable? It's true.

Aspen trees have a particular smell to them, and now that I'm older whenever I smell an aspen grove it brings back memories of fishing in those beaver ponds as a child. I have actually even pulled over in the middle of a road trip to get out of the car and go sit in an aspen grove for a bit. They don't have a strong odor all year 'round, I think it's mostly in the spring, but as a kid I didn't pay attention to when they were stronger than when, I just enjoyed the odor.

Some days we would hike to the ridgetop for lunch, where it was possible to see Lake Tahoe on one side and Reno on the other. The path we used was created by woodsmen selling lumper from the Lake Tahoe basin to the mines in Virginia City. There are old camps all along that road, and I have spent quite a bit of time imagining what life was like for those men. Often I wonder what their lives were like, and if I would have been able to have as much fun as I think I would, had I lived back then.

Nature has been a world of wonderment to me as a child, and a force against which to struggle as an adult. Now just because I'm considered an adult, that doesn't mean I've lost the childlike wonder. I think wonder and struggle are intertwined in my version of nature. I cannot see the middlefork canyon without hiking, the glow worms in Little Volcano without ascenders, and now I find I can't go play in the rain without getting my pushrims wet, which causes the brakes on my wheelchair to fail.

I find big trees are especially able to bring about the wonderment, and if they happen to be dead and near a road, the struggle soon appears as I cut them down and bring home pieces of their bodies to burn in my fireplace. The trees are having their fun with me now however. When I was tall and strong, I brought my wood home in rounds, some four or five feet across. All of those have been split, but I still have a huge pile of oak left, some rounds two and a half feet accross. I can't even move them, let alone split them and get them into the fireplace. Little valley burned as a result of a lightening fire in 1983, and I have only been back once since.

Little Valley, the place in Nevada where I spent my summers.