I was born and raised in suburban environments. Despite this being the native environment into which I was born and socialized, I never felt fully at home in the suburbs. As a child, I always sought out the nearest patch of woodlands to play in, and enjoyed outdoor sports. As a teenager, I started working early to earn extra money, often laboring as a landscaper. I have always felt a deep connection to the land, which seemed out of place in the suburbs.

During my late teens and twenties, I was drawn to the cities for many reasons, including formal educational opportunities, early career opportunities, and the social and cultural excitement that can be found in such places. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the city, which proved in many ways to be a personally enriching and beneficial growth experience.

As much as there was to gain from the urban environment, there was still something missing and that was a connection to the land. As time went on, I felt the draw of the country grow stronger and stronger. I spent time visiting many places and of all the places I visited, Schoharie County was very high on the list of places where I could see myself living happily for the remainder of my years. At thirty years of age, I became a father, and my longstanding desire to homestead in the country became overwhelming. It was time to put down the proverbial roots. What better place to do that than in Middleburgh, New York?

Living here has been a journey of increasing awareness and knowledge about the bounty of nature that surrounds me as I’ve bonded with the rural environment. This has been the first place where I’ve truly felt at home and connected to the land. I have my own garden and have become a better cook and crafter. I’ve studied the local flora and fauna and learned all kinds of neat and interesting facts, with topics ranging from herbal medicine to mineralogy. I’ve gone spelunking, climbed mountains, waded in creeks, and searched for and discovered 10,000 year old arrowheads.

Continuing my self-directed education in the school of country wisdom, I finally decided to take a hunter safety course so I could obtain a hunting license. I found the course to be informative and useful in the information presented. It would be a good course for anyone to take, not just people who plan to hunt.It teaches respect for nature and conservation and instructs on the proper and safe use of firearms. It discusses the laws and the personal ethics involved in hunting and handling firearms. The course includes excellent information on survival, first aid, identification of animals and their characteristics, and stewardship of natural resources. There are many other useful pieces of information I am of course neglecting to mention.

Hunting is regulated by the department of environmental conservation and the laws are enforced by special state police officers in our county. These law

enforcement officers are a great boon to us all as they focus on areas that would otherwise be overlooked, including issues pertaining to degradation of the land itself. In fact, they are rather understaffed given the importance of their mission and the scope of their responsibilities.

An excise tax on firearms and ammunition, passed by the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937 places protected funds, immune to bureaucratic pilfering, into an account which covers the cost of the hunter safety course. These funds also provide wide ranging benefits to conservation generally. Additional sources of conservation funds come from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses. Hunting and trapping can be fun and rewarding experiences. Like in any human endeavor, there are people involved who are irresponsible and unethical in their behavior and it is these bad apples that hurt the reputation of the activity and its ethical participants. Hunting is generally a very safe sport and problems are few but widely reported when they do occur.

Hunting is becoming an ever safer endeavor thanks to this excellent course and the information it teaches. After decades of analyzing mistakes and accidents that happen in the field, the New York State Department of Environment Conservation has been able to concentrate its educational efforts on attempting to preclude many of these often tragic incidents. One of the major mistakes made by hunters is to not properly identify what they are shooting at. Emotions and adrenaline run high and the need to win takes over, jeopardizing safety and clouding proper judgment. As part of the course, the instructors briefly held up signs with common phrases written on them. The catch is that there was a minor problem with the wording of each phrase (i.e. "a bird in the the hand" rather than "a bird in the hand"). The class was asked to write down the phrase and almost everyone got it wrong, thinking

they saw the common phrase rather than what was actually written.

The purpose of this excellent exercise is to teach attention to detail and to demonstrate how the brain makes very rapid judgments, which are often wrong, and then sticks to them. Things are often not always what they appear to be, especially if they appear to be something the brain finds familiar. It will just go ahead and wrongly “fill in the blanks”.Some of the people who wrote the phrase down incorrectly could not even spot their error when being allowed to stare at the phrase for a long period of time. Once the brain makes a first impression judgment, it is very hard to overcome. We’re hard-

wired to construct a personal worldview based on our own premises, whether they be objectively correct or not and we abhor making mistakes, stubbornly defending a fallacious premise even against overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Over 90% of students in every class fail this seemingly simple test. Yet, there is no shame in being wrong if wisdom was gained through the process of trial and error. To see what is really before us is to be able to prepare, survive, and even thrive

when faced with it.