I thought a seven-year-old boy would appreciate the life in the wetland, so I made it a point to bring Martin over and wax on enthusiastically about the tadpoles and diversity of life in the small exclosure when we were working on the trees in the back pasture.
A bit later, he was helping mulch some trees and ran out of things to do, so he asked if he could go look at the swamp, as he refers to it. I watched from a distance as he first climbed part way up the fence, peering in. I made a bet with myself that it wouldn’t be long before he crawled over the fence and went inside to look. Sure enough, the pull was too strong and he crawled over the fence.
A few minutes later he came running at full speed towards me, face red with heat in the 90 degree day “Dad, there’s a turtle in the swamp!” He shaped his hands about as big as a dinner plate and retold the story of the turtle siting. As I went back to see if I could spy the turtle he turned to me and said “Dad, the farm is getting a lot bigger now.” I asked him what he meant and he said “Now we have a swamp, we have a baby forest, and a wind turbine.” Even though you can’t buy that comment with MasterCard, I still thought it was priceless.