Noisy Forest

Personal memory by CJ McConnell

2014Minnesota, USA

My grandparents own 40 acres of land that's mostly made up of trees, and a lot of them were ones they planted over 40 years ago. My cousins and I always go there for a few weeks during the summer to hang out with family and have some time relaxing in nature. We go out on the trails every day that we're there, and we used to see and hear a lot of wildlife. A couple of years ago, the neighbor's land that had part of the forest sold their land, and the new neighbors cleared out a lot of their trees to make tracks for their dirt bikes. They make a lot of noise, and there was a long time where it was rare to see any of the wildlife other than the birds. All the aunts, uncles, and cousins went out to the store and we got a variety of plants and feeders to attract the animals back. When I was visiting a few months ago, there were deer eating the plants we put in the pasture, rabbits hopping around the meadow, hummingbirds at the bird feeders, a family of raccoons climbing up a tree one after the other, and a couple of turkeys waddling down one of the main trails.