Paths

   There are, I suppose, several kinds of paths.  The interstate is a path of sorts--a nice wide path that went through everything that was in its way.  No doubt that included some lands and homes that belonged to people who were less than thrilled about having to give them up.  But it is a path used by who knows how many people every day.  And the builders did leave behind some ponds from the holes they dug.  That's a good thing, eh?  (Sorry, my prejudices are showing.)  All those "paths" go somewhere people need to be.
    I, too, have built some paths in my wild area.  They are narrow, overgrown at times--if my lawnmower ever dies, they will quickly cease to exist; it will only take one summer.  Some of them are redundant and would appear to be paths to nowhere.  That's because they are.  All paths were initially cut at random, and some of the paths have been returned to wildness and new paths have occasionally been cut.  I doubt if that will ever change because I am a person who changes his mind way too often I imagine.  Sometimes I have cut paths to take me nearer to clusters of wildflowers.  Sometimes I have filled up old paths with new wildflowers that I want to get naturalized into my wildness, and then I let that path return to its naturalness so the new flowers will look like they have always been there.  (Tricky, huh?)  I do plant flowers that are native to Ohio prairie lands (most of the time anyway).  That's good of me, right?  Of course, sometimes the naturalization doesn't take, sometimes it takes years--yes, years--after I've tried to start them and given up all hope, and  sometimes God just plants His own new additions to the wild scene--those are the greatest surprises.  My paths are kinda like museum aisles or grocery store aisles (different kinds of paths) designed to take you by the "good stuff."  This I know.  I love to walk through the paths in my wild area even in the dead of winter when there are no flowers to see.
     I, also, try to prove Thoreau wrong.  I try not to take the same paths every day.  Now, that's a little self-deception I know because I always walk all the paths every day; I just don't walk them in the same order.  And I'm not alone, by the way.  When I walk out there after a new snow, I find that the wild animals have walked my paths as well in their nighttime wanderings.  I'm always fascinated that the wild creatures prefer to walk on my man-mowed paths, rather than trudge through the brush.  But it's true.  In fact, my dog friends almost always walk in their own footprints.  They don't like to make new paths in the snow or even when the snow is gone.  Wild things are creatures of habit too.  I have a nice worn dog path right through the middle of my huge lily bed where Bonnie and Gus go back and forth over my property to visit each other.  Like the bulldozers that made the interstate they just walked over whatever was in the way.  (They do "fertilize" the garden now and then so I guess I shouldn't complain.)  I, being more sensitive to the wildness, try to walk around things, try to let things "in the way" stay "in the way"--even if they weren't in the way last time I walked there.
     I love my paths.  I walk them every day.  I don't mind sharing them with the wild creatures.  I'm glad I could make their lives a little easier. =)  I even love it that they are paths to nowhere--because they all end up here--on Iten's Acres.