Photo gallery for OUTDOOR TRADITIONS: Lesson in conservation taught by young child

It was in the northern woods of our great state of Michigan about a decade ago.
My son Jacob and I were doing a little fall turkey hunting. At this point, Jacob was 6 years old.
My children have hunted and fished with me from about the time they no longer needed diapers. Every father knows how well dads and diapers get along.
During these formative years there were many lessons both my children and I learned. This was one of those times in which I learned the lesson from the child.
Jacob and I had been scouting for turkeys along the Pine River. Turkey scouting in the fall isn’t much different than in the spring — locating birds takes a lot of time on your feet.
Once you know the general area of the turkeys it is time to look for signs of the birds. As you walk through the woods you’re looking for tracks, feathers, feeding scratches and droppings.
In order to save time, focus on the feeding scratches because they can be spotted from a distance.
With the fallen leaves of autumn you can see where the turkeys have turned them over in search of food.
Once you’ve located what you think are feeding scratches, make sure that they are not buck deer scrapings. These will typically have a hoof print or two in the bare dirt.
As turkeys travel in flocks, there will usually be several feeding scratches as opposed to the single scrape a deer will make.
At this point you can verify your find by looking a little closer for turkey tracks, feathers and droppings.
Anyway, as Jacob and I were going through this process of locating the feeding places of the bird Ben Franklin revered so much he suggested it as a national symbol we came across an old tire someone had left in the woods.
Now, I’m going to assume this was a case of the spare tire falling from a vehicle traveling through the woods and the poor owner didn’t realize it had happened. In any case, the tire didn't belong there and my son was kind enough to point this out.
At first I wanted to tell him that it belonged to someone else and it wasn’t our job to remove it from the woods. But after a little pondering, and a bit of prodding by my son, I submitted to the fact that it was my job, and the job of everyone else who enters the woods, to be good stewards of what has been entrusted to us by God.
We removed the tire from the woods and brought it to a DNR research station, placed a note on it and hoped someone from the DNR would dispose of it properly. On our next trip we discovered that it had been taken care of.
As you travel into the woods this fall remember the lesson I learned about stewardship and remember the example you can set for your children.
Whether it is the trash that you produce or the trash of someone else, take care of it. Being a good steward can sometimes take a little extra work, but we’re all in this together.
Genesis 1:28
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