A low-lying area in the hayfield, circled by higher ground, turns into a pond each spring. Melted snow and a steady supply of rain have created about an acre of water surface. The clay soil and underperforming drain have kept it from drying off until early summer.

Standing water has, in turn, killed off the hay, making the field less productive than it should be. In the interest of economic well-being I’ll probably fix the drain this year, thus speeding up the run-off and hopefully making that acre more hospitable to forage crops.

The presence of the pond has had an upside; one that causes me to pause with my planned remedy. Some puddle ducks usually show up to nest and then raise their young. This spring I noticed a pair of Canadian geese—a mating twosome I’d guess. I’ll soon find out if geese and ducks are compatible in a constricted area.

There’s a wetland marsh at the back end of the field and the sand hill cranes use that as their home base. The cranes, though, like to wander about the hayfield, so we’re apt to see them close by.

The measure of trade-offs is often difficult. The lingering pond has probably cost me a couple hundred dollars a year in hay profits, but I enjoy watching the waterfowl floating across the surface. I enjoy seeing the ducklings (and this year goslings) getting their start outside our back window.

Wildlife needs suitable habitat and it’s the alteration of that habitation from a natural state to something more suitable for human use that’s resulted in difficulties, even extinction, for many critters. Not all of course. The raccoons, coyotes, rats and mice, carp, pigeons and sparrows, the ‘possums, and deer are among those that have adapted to the changing landscape and found a means to proliferate amid human settlement and activity.

Some survive, and for now thrive, only because of extra efforts we’ve made to help them. Others, though, hang in the balance.

It’s easy to support the aesthetics of nature, the protection of wild places, in theory. It’s even easier to do that when the land belongs to someone else or is located a long ways away. The specifics, weighing the benefits of economic development or human-inspired change against the general well-being of, say, resident frogs and turtles or songbirds, are what often causes the heat and passion in our policy and personal debates.

A farmer wishes to drain a wetland to expand his corn crop. A landowner wants to clear cut a woodlot and develop a subdivision. A lumber company would like to log an area of protected wilderness. A bottling company desires to take water from Michigan and sell it in Arizona. The energy company proposes to put wind turbines out in Lake Michigan or along a stretch of shoreline, but this would mar the unobstructed view of the homeowners. These are examples of the ‘push and pull’ of such considerations.

THE FACT WE PAUSE ABOUT THE IMPACT on wild places and scenic vistas, consider the repercussions of our proposed actions, and weigh the varying uses and importance of our natural resources is a positive sign. That’s not been the legacy we inherited.

Michigan, blessed with certain riches, has seen successive booms and busts. John Jacob Astor, residing in New York City during the early part of the 1800s, turned the Great Lakes into a highly-organized, highly-efficient monopoly aimed at trapping fur-bearing animals and processing their pelts. The heyday lasted from the War of 1812 (when the United States finally took control of this area) to the 1830s and left the woods and fields nearly barren of those species. There was not much ‘land to live off’ when the first white settlers showed up in the interior of the state in the mid-1830s.

The clear cutting of the once vast forests of white pine in northern Michigan occurred later that century, leaving behind sawdust and tree stumps. In the Upper Peninsula there were the economic bonanzas of iron ore and copper mining, followed by declines when the minerals became more difficult to dig out and other, more easily obtained deposits were located in other states and nations. Shortly after the interior settlement, the railroads and steamboats became the transportation that enhanced our prosperity, however their environmental footprints could be damaging. In the 1900s the steady rise of automobile manufacturing, of manufacturing in general, brought thousands of jobs and an improved standard of living, but turned once pristine waterways, lakes, and even the Great Lakes into dumping reservoirs for industrial waste and fouled the air with polluted smoke.

For a time famers, chasing higher yields and larger profits, indiscriminately applied fertilizers and sprays onto the land, causing run-off contamination. And we had our ‘wonder’ products, like DDT, that turned out to have unforeseen, unintended consequences to nature.

In Bruce Catton’s book “Michigan: A History”, he wrote “the idea that abundance as inexhaustible—that fatal Michigan word—(has) dominated thinking about the state from the days when Commandant Cadillac’s (French) soldiers arrived at (and founded) Detroit until his name became a brand of car.”

The inexhaustible furs were trapped out, the inexhaustible forests of white pines were cut down, the plentiful veins of iron ore and copper have been well mined, the once-dominant railroads and steamships surrendered their importance to freighters and the automobile. Now we-- present-day Michiganians—are observing with much trepidation and uncertainty the decline of our state’s role as the ‘automobile center’.

Government services, career opportunities, income expectations, our own and our children’s futures, and much more are being reexamined, rearranged, and in many situations downscaled. We’re learning that man-made resources—just like the earlier natural ones—are not limitless or guaranteed for any length of time.

A couple of new words, possibly signaling a new thinking, have entered the economic development vocabulary. Sustainability and co-existence.

Nature still offers a bounty: wind and sun for energy, rich soil and open spaces for agricultural production, timber for selected harvesting, remaining minerals that can be mined, oil and gas to be discovered, a verdant beauty and rolling terrain that’s made the state’s steams, lakes, forests, and hill country popular sites for summer and winter recreational users, and above all, our supply of fresh water.

And there is the accelerating pace of human ingenuity and technical know how that can take a raw material or farm crop and turn it into higher value products… all of the potential of a knowledge and skill-based work force.

A recent newspaper article noted, “Economic development specialists, scientists, and business leaders say our land, water, and wind-swept shores can once again propel us into a prosperous future.”

It added, “Now the watchword is ‘sustainability’ packaged with its catch phrase ‘triple bottom line’. That means any exploitation has to make sense for the economy, the environment and society in general—a far cry from the clear-cutting, strip-mining and open industrial drains of our founding years.

“Today’s leaders argue that, handled correctly, competing uses-- such as tourism and forests, residential neighborhoods and agricultural uses, water consumption and water conservation-- can co-exist peacefully and profitably.”

That’s our challenge—to sustain, co-exist with, profit from, and still protect our natural resources. To appreciate and enjoy the wild places.