David Thoreau

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backhoeboogie

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In one of my literature classes years ago, I had to read David Thoreau.

He wrote of birds building nests. They worked their tales off all day long. But they sang the whole time. They cared for and raised their young. Cow birds lay their eggs in the nest of another bird. Natural chicks get kicked out.

It was long ago that I read Thoreau. Probably need a refresher.

Reading thru that "How much" thread it seems that many of you are good birds. Happy. Good work ethics. You contribute to society.
 
If you take into account Thoreau was pretty in tune with nature its easy to see how he draws some of his thoughts and comparisons about nature and moral decay. Pushing his thoughts forward to today one might see the wisdom in his words of how in nature, plants and animals worry so much about their offspring and their well being even going to the point of sacrificing themselves for their young. So is it surprising that the further we move away from nature the closer we come to moral decay where we are willing to let others care for our young and in so doing depriving themselves of the natural satisfaction this accomplishment grants?
 
The real difference is balance....in nature there is generally a necessary and sometimes seemingly harsh balance to all existence...cowbirds even have a role to play..In our society, balance is severely lacking..we as a society have done this to ourselves by promoting and enabling an over abundance of our very own group of "cowbirds".
 
backhoeboogie":388tkoum said:
Only if it matters, to you, I suppose.

It appears to me the cowbirds place the destiny of their species in to the hands of others Jogee. If they were to become extinct, maybe that would be a good thing for working birds?

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/brow ... ifehistory

I'm sure there have always been cowbirds but your link also says their number increased as people built towns and the birds moved into those areas so Thoreau still has a in my view.

I agree with bbird. There is a point of balance and nature can be harsh. A brutal question is if an area is suffering from famine do you send them food or let nature take its course. Sending food could mean artificially raising the carrying capacity where more will suffer under less stressful conditions or do you stand by and let nature thin things back into balance. Tough question.
 
Not exactly what I was looking for, but close enough :

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/299341- ... in-a-man-s

"There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?"

What I was looking for was the birds singing as they toiled laborously.
 
Jogeephus":1z8lmv4a said:
Gonadal recrudescence is the term in nature. In the hood its called a woofer I believe.
Now that there is funny, I don't care who you are..
 
Notably, Walden Woods, Concord, and, indeed, all of New England were far less densely forested in the mid-to-late nineteenth century (including during Thoreau's 1845-1847 Walden stay) than they are today. Much previously wooded land was cleared for cultivation or pasturage, while the wood stoves and other requirements of a growing population consumed local woodlots faster than they could be regrown. During the twenty years before Thoreau began his Walden residency, most of the trees on one Walden hillside owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson were cut down. Ironically enough, Emerson then purchased an additional fourteen acres of Walden woodland, including the land on which he let Thoreau built his cabin and plant his beanfield, in large part to preserve the threatened sylvan setting of the pond that charmed him just as it did his younger friend. Yet not without reason is the sound of woodchopper Alek Therien's ax a persistent refrain in Walden. And not long after Thoreau left the pond, the severe winter of 1851-1852 caused much of Walden Woods to be cut for firewood. Still, the pond and its immediate shoreline remained a woodland retreat, and in 1855 Thoreau joined with Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and William Ellery Channing to form the "Walden Pond Walking Association," a whimsical yet fitt
 

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