Into the wild...

I couldn't help but take advantage of the first bit of sunlight I saw on Saturday. I had been like a caged animal all week, enclosed by walls and rooms that were deficient of natural lighting. I needed to break free, from rushing cars that zoomed past me within the blink of an eye. I needed to escape the screaming pleas of small children begging to be let loose from their strollers and cart and into their designated play ares. I needed to slip the collar and just feel at peace with myself again. I needed to feel natural elements around me.

I headed out for some woods a few miles southwest from Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The wooded area serves as public hunting and fishing grounds and stretches out for 612 acres.

Many wildlife species call home to these lands. White-tailed deer, turkey, woodcocks, cottontail rabbits, gray squirrel, and ring-necked pheasants roam these woods, and keep us company along our hike. Uplands, restored prairies, season grasses and northern hardwoods like maple, basswood and ash can be seen in all many areas throughout or exploration.

We followed familiar trails but often were lead away by an animal, traces of animals or just natural scenery. We headed toward the lowlands, where marsh marigolds were budding and skunk cabbage was crunched beneath every step. I favored the smell of the cabbage, and I tore some from its root, and smelled it as I walked along. Through the swamp we ran into a spring we washed off out boots and listened to the water and natures calls.

Several cold-water seeps and springs, run together to combine and form the North Branch of the Milwaukee river. The creek is a class 1, trout stream were naturally producing brook and brown trout can been seen. Among them, northern white cedars, black ash, tamarack, yellow birch and speckled alder are mainly caught.

I spent a good thirty minutes, sitting in my boyfriends deer stand, imagining and picturing and just fantasizing the thrill of a hunt, or a good catch. Silence was necessary, I was guest in mother natures home, where she always won. I looked up, side to side and all around, glancing in every direction and the slightest noise or chirp of a bird. The chance to only hear wildlife, and my breathing was a moment of solitary my mind had craved for days. To feel the wind through my hair and against my face as it carried me to the next trail was priceless. I just needed a few moments to imagine what life once like as a hunter or gatherer. I needed just a moment into the wild and away from humanity.