Wow- very interesting read. While I thought that this would fall into my normal 'story-telling, environmentally aware' non-fiction, what I came to discover is that it is much more.

While I started out having a hard time getting into this book, by about 1/3 of the way through, I'd reset my expectations and came to find it truly enlightening and thought-provoking. It is much more than just non-fiction; it is philosophy about man's role in the natural world, couched amongst personal encounters with nature.

Written as a set of musings, each chapter a different concept, but all rooted and bound by the author's attraction for and passionate hobby of gardening. He starts each chapter with a grounded natural/gardening concept- suburban lawns, the loss of a local forest due to a freak tornado, and tells an interesting and engaging vignette about it; then he swirls expertly into a broader and more philosophic focus from this source topic. One that sticks into my mind right now is the chapter about the local forest that was uprooted by a freak tornado and how it created local uproar when factions battled on whether it was more 'natural' to replant it or just let the blown-down trees lay. From there he went to philosophize about how truly even these 'natural' forests were touched by humans both around the 1700s and most likely even before by Native Americans- so what is truly 'natural' and what is our role as stewards within the natural environment around us. His questions and thoughts took me by surprise and really had me questioning philosophic 'natural world' concepts that I had taken for granted.

By the end of the book, I had come to avidly looking forward to reading one chapter in an evening, and pondering on the concept for a couple days. This book isn't something to be taken in and devoured within a few sittings. It's meant to be savored. Dark chocolate reading.