Selection from Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac"

Good Oak

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue.

To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the week end in town astride a radiator.

These excerpts are from A Sand County Almanac, with essays on conservation from Round River, by Aldo Leopold and published by Oxford University Press (1966).

For more information about Aldo Leopold, see: www.aldoleopold.org