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An interesting fact popped up on my screen this morning – approximately 63% of our population in this country live on a little less than 4% of our land area. In other words, most of us live in urban areas. It means most of you reading this don’t have critters like bears, deer, wild turkeys, and assorted other wild animals wandering through your yards if you even have a yard. We even occasionally have visits from Mountain Lions. The Bears can be annoying and destructive, but it was fun to see those three little cubs with their mother this spring. It’s also one to watch the fawns playing. Even the young wild critters play and are fun to watch. I grew up considering many of these critters as food sources. Every summer I spent it with my grandparents. They lived in a time when domestic protein needed to be supplemented with the wild animals around them. The debate about guns makes little sense to me. I was taught a gun is a tool to bring food to the table just as a hoe is a tool to bring food from the garden to the table. The rural world is very different from the city world. I know that well as I have lived in big cities ranging from Toronto to Philadelphia. I enjoyed many things about cities ranging from great restaurants to great museums. However, I always felt a little uncomfortable in cities. I am sitting here in my office which faces east. It’s a mostly sunny day, but I can’t even see beyond the end of my driveway. Across the road is a wooded area made up of mostly mature Poplar trees with an understory of brush. I literally can’t see more than 25 feet into that wooded area. It is difficult to move through that area unless you can find the deer trail. When I was a child, it was easy for me to find deer trails because I was low to the ground and could to see the “tunnels” through thick areas. Now I have to get down and look around to find them. That’s my skill, but yours might be finding your way through your public transportation system. I remember my trips through the New York subway system too well. I appreciate your skills. More and more people are going to join you living in urban areas and there will be fewer people like me living on a dirt road and sharing my living space with a multitude of wild critters.