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Conservation Commission

Conservation and More

              by Bruce B. Beckley

Issue #74, December, 1999
Feeling Good

Writing this article is an excuse to sit down at 8 in the morning. I'm a list maker and there's a long one at the other end of the table. But I choose to sit and watch the robins pecking at the frozen crab apples while the jays and other little peeps vie for places at the sunflower and suet counter. It's a gift that allows me to be here in the wood stove's radiance looking out at the frost encased variety and patterns of the microcosm around our windows.

December 21 is Forefather's Day - the day in 1620 when the Pilgrims first stepped onto land in Plymouth. What a land they stepped onto! A land that only ten millennia earlier was covered with ice. It survived that millennium when so much of the earth's water was locked up in the ice cap that trees grew offshore at Ordiorne's Point on the New Hampshire coast. The stumps are still there beneath the tides.

Prophets four millennia ago warned of doom and 2000 years ago spoke of hope. I don't doubt for a moment the years will keep coming and that robins, jays and little peeps will adapt and keep coming, too. John Burroughs wrote, "The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and wonder of the world." What we have must change but it's too good to be taken away.

The Boy Scout Fieldbook contains an Outdoor Code which says, in part: As an American, I will do my best to be clean in my outdoor manners. I will treat the outdoors as a heritage to be improved for our greater enjoyment. I will keep my trash and garbage out of America's waters, fields, woods and roadways. I will remember that use of the outdoors is a privilege I can lose by abuse. I will learn how to practice good conservation and I will urge others to do the same. If we do that, new and better millennia can't help but keep coming.

The Amherst Conservation Commission has so many partners as we try to turn heritage and principle into conservation practice. We thank them all: The voters and all residents we work for. Town workers, especially in the APD, AFD and DPW. The folks at Nashua Regional Planning Commission. Organizations - Amherst Gardeners, Scout Troops, Amherst Congregational Church. Business partners - PJ Currier, PSNH, Merrimack Soils, Wilkins Lumber, Amherst Survey, Ken Jones Ski Mart and Tubbs Snowshoes, Charles Koch. Volunteers who slogged through wetlands, cleared trails, presented programs. Gift givers - Arnolds, Bates, Hafez, Woolsey. And always, the Wales for helping us present our story to you.

Don't worry if you waited til the last minute to buy your Christmas presents. So did the Three Wise Men. You can be wise for another week. Send your millennium-end gift now to the ACC Gift Account or Peabody Mill Environmental Center at P.O. Box 960. Make the Outdoor Code yours.

Thanks, Shalom and Peace
Bruce

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