Last night i turned in to the sound of a howling coyote. The night before to the hum and buzz of a thousand junebugs taking flight in their odd and clumsy way. Tonight, it was the gobble of a wild turkey. Ever present are the screams of hungry longhorns looking for their evening meal to be tossed out the bed of a pickup, the whispers of cottontail feet as they plod through the grass in the dusk light and the snorts of cautious deer attempting to clean up the corn from the discarded chicken scratch surrounding the pen. I am reminded that for over 20 years none of these noises were familiar to me. They would have been a novelty…severely out of place. I need this area not to change. I need the wilderness to stay wild and undeveloped, so i can hear coyotes, cotton tails, turkeys, deer, and so much more. It is not me or my property that sustains these animals. It is the woods. So, i pray the wilderness is always dense and wild.