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Love to our mother Earth.
Take off your shoes and look long, for it is our mother Earth that nods welcome to us. We are humans, capable of feeling love and gratitude for the utter majesty of our home. As we live on her ground and gaze at her sky, we feel great appreciation for all our magical mother gives every single moment.

We can feel pure gratitude for the gifts our mother Earth provides as she effortlessly replenishes for our needs. From crust to core, she produces the resources we take to thrive as a colony of humans. Within her depths she houses fuels to better our hardened paths and she lets us dig through her layers to find them. She allows the cultivation of the food we eat in the quantities we require. And offers an abundance of water to quench our thirsty needs.

We are brilliant with ideas. The images created in our minds become inventions of our world. The end product is a work of genius that only the human mind and body could concoct with the tools Earth provides. It is naturally human to want to make life kinder, richer, more encompassing and wholly worthy. And we marvel at the creations of man.

Like the fertile mother she is, Earth gives birth and provides abundantly for all creatures sharing our world. Her critters arouse our human emotions; making our earthly experience more whole.

Our mother is a colorful spirit, marking our world with greens and blues, and teasing us with brief blasts of her rich spectrum of color. Look east and west as we are treated to a unique painting in the sky every dawn and dusk. And our senses are designed for the capability to appreciate all the blooms that pepper her green life.

So take off your shoes, take a long look at these images, and appreciate all that mother Earth gives. And find yourself pleasantly mesmerized in her astounding beauty as witness to a single moment.

Each year hundreds of domesticated animals find themselves abandoned in Florida’s wilderness. Being unwanted might be their only fault. “My First Year, By Forest Pappas” is a story told by one such dog. Abandoned in the woods as a young puppy, Forest recounts his experiences while learning to survive alone in the wilderness. He shares with us the struggle of daily life in such a primitive world. And tells us of his rescue by the loving family he now calls his. Forest captures the hearts of everyone he meets. One look into his wise brown eyes and you know his stories to be true.

Forest is a real dog. We found him by chance while exploring the wild desolate roads of the Twin Rivers State Forest. The expansive park surrounds the confluence of the Withlacoochee River and the Suwannee River in north central Florida. In the spring of 2014, both rivers busted their banks and flooded much of the park. Our meeting in the park came after the waters receded.

He had our hearts the moment we saw him in such a deplorable state. Bony thin, infested with bugs, and cowardly. We felt so sorry for him. It took an hour of coaxing to get him into the truck that evening. We refused to leave without him.

Forest is a fine young healthy dog. His loyalty to us and us to him makes our lives full of great pride and joy. And now his story is available on Amazon for Kindle.