I have spent the majority of my life outside. This has bonded me to the forest of the Pacific Northwest. Growing up I spent all of my quality time with my grandfather hunting, fishing, hiking, backpacking, or rough housing with the other kids in the lumber camp where he and my grandmother lived. In the late seventies when I started working in the woods for the forestry department doing many jobs from thinning forest stands, digging fire trail, and fighting forest fires. This solidified my bond with the NW forest to the point every time I returned home for a visit from the military I could feel a calm come over me that I have felt in no other place. I now own a small woodlot that I see myself as the caretaker of and benefit from all it provides our family.