July "Great Possessions"

Excerpts from "A Sand County Almanac" edition published by Tamarack Press, 1977.

Leopold's July essays entitled "Great Possessions" recount his joy in land along the Wisconsin River as he rises early to listen to its "tenants". His poetic expressions of dawn bird song combine with his scientist's proclivity for documenting each note.

..."This daily ceremony...begins with the utmost decorum...At 3:30 a.m. with such dignity as I can muster of a July morning, I step from my cabin door, bearing in my hand my emblems of sovereignty, a coffee pot and notebook. I seat myself on a bench, facing the white wake of the morning star. I set the pot beside me. I extract a cup from my shirt front, hoping none will notice its informal mode of transport. I get out my watch, pour coffee, and lay notebook on knee. This is the cue for the proclamations to begin.

At 3:35 the nearest field sparrow avows, in a clear tenor chant, that he holds the jackpine copse north to the riverbank, and south to the old wagon track...Before the field sparrows have quite gone the rounds, the robin in the big elm warbles loudly his claim to the crotch where the icestorm tore off a limb, and all appurtenances pertaining thereto (meaning, in his case, all the angleworms in the not-very-spacious subjacent lawn). The robin's insistent caroling awakens the oriole, who now tells the world of orioles that the pendant branch of the elm belongs to him, together with all fiber-bearing milkweed stalks near by, all loose strings in the garden, and the exclusive right to flash like a burst of fire from one of these to another.

My watch says 3:50. The indigo bunting on the hill asserts title to the dead oak limb left in the 1936 drought, and to divers near-by bugs and bushes. He does not claim, but I think he implies, the right to out-blue all bluebirds, and all spiderworts that have turned their faces to the dawn. ...

I encourage you to continue reading "Prairie Birthday" as well as "The Green Pasture and "The Choral Copse" which are August and September essays. LR