Nature Always Rebuilds

It's been awhile since I updated. Life intrudes periodically, and the beginning of summer is usually when that happens. Once school is out, all five kids are underfoot, and it makes it hard to get work done, let alone anything extra. We took a wonderful vacation up to the family cabin on Tilden Lake in Ontario, Canada, and I was just looking at some of the pictures, and a topic came to mind that I decided to run with: nature rebuilds.

You see, this is my general problem with us humans; we're less interested in preserving the environment than we are in preserving the status quo. The honest to God truth is, the environment will do fine without us. It can rebuild, readjust, and recover from just about anything we humans can throw at it. It might look a little different, it might be less hospitable to us, and perhaps to other species, but it will go on.

As a testament to the tenacity and resilience of nature, consider the accompanying pictures, taken by my children during a canoe ride on Tilden Lake.

The first photo shows the rocky terrain of the area we visit. Tilden Lake is located in mid-Ontario province, where there is precious little soil. Highways have to be blasted through the landscape (a true wonder of human tanacity and ingenuity - really, I don't totally disdain my own kind). You can see in this first picture that the trees literally cling to the sides on the rocks, their roots reaching deep into the rock, and breaking it up to create their own 'environment' for life. It is truly amazing to see where things grow in this beautiful wilderness.

The second photo shows another strategy: rebuilding on the skeleton of the past. Here a dead, felled tree actually creates the start of a new island in the lake, providing a platform for new life. Honestly, how can you not be impressed by the ingenuity of nature itself.

So, admit it you measley human beings, what you're really interested in is preserving YOUR EXISTING ENVIRONMENT, not in preserving the environment itself. I mean, let's be honest with ourselves here, who doesn't believe that nature will come up with another species to take our place if we screw this up?