I love animals. I’ve always loved animals.
I feel it is my duty to teach my children love and respect for nature and animals.
I’ve always made nature and animal encounters a priority in our homeschool and life.
We’re a military family and I love to learn about the flora and fauna of every new place we live.
We chose to rent our current house in Ohio because the backyard is all wooded with a little creek. We often see deer, opossums, raccoons, stray cats, owls, hawks, herons, ducks, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, and sometimes even a coyote. I set out food for the critters and my family calls me Snow White.
Our next door neighbor is a certified Ohio naturalist!
The little pond near our current house offer close encounters with kingfishers, herons, ducks. I love to watch them as I take my daily walk.
We lived in the Pfalz forest in Germany and saw lots of foxes and boar along the road and in the meadows. We had a lovely little backyard pond where frogs and toads would lay eggs and we watched them grow up. We also learned about the dragonfly life cycle. We even had a huge salamander one day!
We would giggle as we watched the quail skedaddle across our backyard in Utah. The hummingbird fights were breathtaking in the mornings and evenings. We lived near Antelope Island and Farmington Bay and loved to go watch the bison, antelope, deer, water birds, eagles, and coyotes.
We spent almost every meal on our lanai in Hawaii and our nightly dinner guest was this very friendly red cardinal who would perch on the back of a chair and dine on our crumbs. He brought his wife and family every season.
I grew up in an Atlanta suburb, but I loved birds, bugs, and water life. I played in the Flint River creek system behind our neighborhood, despite my mother’s warnings.
I anticipate magic when I encounter nature. I anticipate a connection with animals and I am seldom disappointed.
No young child chooses to turn away from nature. Losing touch with that relationship hurts just as it would to be separated from any other loving, foundational connection they have in their lives.
Nicolette Sowder
We have cat companions and they are members of our family. They are better than therapy and help us through tough times. They know when we are sick or feeling down and snuggle up to us to comfort.
Without any apology, lightweight theology, or fear of heresy, I can appropriately say that Venus [the black lab] was also Christ for me.
Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ
I am a firm believer that if we are still and quiet in nature, we will be rewarded with blessings of magical animal encounters. They are curious and long to connect with us if they don’t see us as threats to them.
I’ve read sections of Our Wild Calling aloud to my family and we are all delighted at the animal encounter stories.
We looked up biophilic design. We remember seeing the animal bridges in Europe across the Autobahn and highways. My daughter told us about the turtle tunnels in Japan.
In his newest book, OUR WILD CALLING: How Connecting with Animals Can Transform our Lives—and Save Theirs, author Richard Louv redefines the future of human-animal coexistence by exploring our deep bonds with other animals and calling for a transformation in how we view, treat, and inhabit our environment.
Through interviews with researchers, theologians, wildlife experts, indigenous healers, parents, teachers, and psychologists, Louv reveals how dogs can teach children ethical behavior, how animals in urban areas are blurring the lines between the domestic and the wild, and what role the human-animal relationship plays in our spiritual well-being.
He explores urgent topics such as biodiversity, inter-species health, and unprecedented conservation practices – including the proposal to set aside half of the planet for nature and wildlife and the assisted migration of invasive species. Louv also introduces readers to pioneering biologists who practice “practical anthropomorphism” as a way to do better science, naturalists now helping thousands of people learn bird language, scientists developing new ways communicate with pets and wild animals, and animal-assisted therapists and teachers challenging the fields of mental health and education.
About the Author
Richard Louv is a journalist and author of ten books. Louv is co-founder and chair emeritus of the nonprofit Children & Nature Network, which supports a new nature movement through partnerships with such organizations as the National League of Cities. In 2008, he was awarded the Audubon Medal, presented by the National Audubon Society.
Richard Louv’s landmark book, Last Child in the Woods, inspired an international movement to connect children and nature and has now sold over half a million copies. Co-founder of the Children & Nature Network and winner of the Audubon Medal. Louv has become the expert on radically improving mental and physical health through our relationship to the natural world.
Get your copy of Our Wild Calling.
You might also like:
- My Favorite Nature Books for Kids
- Fishing Nature Study
- Hummingbird Nature Study
- Winter Birds Study
- Grasshopper Nature Study
- Quail Nature Study
- Our Trip to Yellowstone
- Our Stay in the Tetons
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