ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel C. Sullivan has arrived at 85 years of age learning about nature through actual experience. He has also had a fascination with mythology taught by reading the works and listening to the lectures of Joseph Campbell. His childhood years were spent helping his father farm in the 40’s and early 50’s. He became fascinated with firearms and hunted regularly throughout his childhood and was rewarded with his first shotgun at the age of 12 that signaled his entry into that strange realm of adulthood. He spent innumerable hours walking the farmlands of SW Kansas in his youth, principally to hunt. He spent time moving cattle with horses and sheep with shanks horse (by foot). All these acquainted him personally with the habits and personalities of the very animals discussed in this book. Then civilized life grabbed him and sent him to college, a time in the army just before President Johnson said he was sending 600,000 American boys to Viet Nam to clean it up, then to law school and a 57 year career as a lawyer, principally in the urban environs of Chicagoland. But, in 1980 rural America called again. Dan now lives on a farm where he initially bred thoroughbreds for the race track. Lawyering provided adventure but not enough. Dan spent his 40’s discovering the delights of road racing motorcycles at speeds up to 150 mph until he discovered his team nicknamed him crash and he retired to horses. Horses allowed a further introduction to the realities of nature.  Foxhunting, eventing competitions, hunter jumper meets and dressage required learning to communicate with his horse and the orthopedic surgeon while traversing the decades with birthdays in his 60’s and 70’s.  However, nature intruded and intrudes constantly at the farm in the form of eagles nesting on his land, buzzards flying overhead, snakes slithering around, strange furry creatures swimming in the creek below the house, rabbits and squirrels stealing dog treats put out for the barn dogs in the morning, flocks of seagulls off the Mississippi coming up the creek to fish out the minnows, and, all that while watching the hummingbirds partake in the sugar water on the porch overlooking the cattle grazing in the pastures surrounding the house. Recently, the love of his life died and he is left bereft with his love of nature and he decided to publish this book. He also arises in the morning to drink coffee while watching the sun come up on the horses playing with each other in the paddock adjacent to the main barn.