There's a kind of farmer who doesn't jest work the land -- he listens to it. He knows the difference between the whisper of a healthy creek and the choked gasp of one poisoned by runoff. He watches the fireflies in June, counts the hellbenders in the shallows, and understands that when the lightning bugs fade, something's wrong long before the soil tests come back. This farmer doesn't need a government pamphlet to tell him pesticides are poison. He's seen the frogs with the extra legs, the fish floatin' belly-up after the neighbor sprays his fields. His granddaddy learnt him better: you don't foul your own nest.

That's the kind of man who fishes at Benny's creek. Call him Tom -- though names don't matter much out here where a man's worth is measured by how he treats the water. Tom's hands are rough from work, but his touch is gentle when he lifts a hellbender from the shallows jest to admire it before letting it go. He's seen Benny a few times at dusk, that ancient salamander movin' like a shadow through the riffles, and he's never once thought to trap him or brag about it at the feed store. Some things are sacred. The creek is one. The creatures that call it home are another.

Tom farms the old way, the way that doesn't need a bank loan for genetically modified seeds or a hazmat suit to spray chemicals that'll kill everything but the corn. His rows are narrower, his yields smaller, but his soil stays black and crumbly, alive with worms and mycorrhizal fungi doin' the work nature intended. When the corporate men in their pressed shirts showed up with contracts and promises of 'progress,' he didn't sign. Not because he's stubborn -- though he is -- but because he's seen what 'progress' leaves behind: dead zones where the catfish used to spawn, kids with rashes from swimming in algae-choked ponds, and farmers so deep in debt to Monsanto they might as well be sharecroppers. Tom's not interested in being owned.

The developer's men called him a fool. Said he was leavin' money on the table. But Tom knows the real foolishness is trading clean water for a paycheck. He's read the studies -- though he doesn't need to. His own eyes tell him enough. The bees are disappearing. The butterflies don't migrate like they used to. And the hellbenders? They're the canary in the coal mine, or in this case, the salamander in the creek. When Benny's kind starts vanishing, it ain't jest bad luck -- it's a warning. The land is sick, and no amount of chemical fertilizer or government subsidy will fix what's broken when the roots themselves are rottin'.

Tom's not alone in his thinking, though the corporate news would have you believe he is. There's a quiet network of folks like him -- farmers, hunters, oldtimers who remember when the creeks ran clear and the deer weren't stunted from eatin' GMO corn. They trade seeds saved from heirloom plants, share remedies made from dandelion roots and black walnut hulls, and know that real wealth ain't in a bank account but in soil that hasn't been sterilized by glyphosate. They're the ones who'll tell you that the FDA's 'safe' levels of atrazine are about as trustworthy as a three-dollar bill, or that the USDA's food pyramid was written by the same people selling Cheetos and Coca-Cola. Tom's part of that network, not because he's a conspiracy theorist, but because he's a man who pays attention.

What the developer doesn't understand -- and what Tom knows in his bones -- is that land like this ain't jest dirt and water. It's a living thing. The creek remembers the Trail of Tears, when the water ran red with the blood of the displaced and the hellbenders hid in the deep pools, waitin' for the soldiers to pass. It remembers the old ways, when the Cherokee would leave offerings of tobacco at the springs and the fireflies would rise in clouds so thick they looked like falling stars. That kind of memory isn't something you can bulldoze or pave over. It's in the roots of the sycamores, in the moss on the limestone, in the way the water still tastes sweet if you cup it in your hands and drink.

So when the lights started appearing over the creek at night -- dancin', flickerin', like the spirits of the old ones had come back to warn off the trespassers -- Tom didn't call the sheriff or the paper. He jest nodded, as if he'd been expecting it. Maybe he had. Maybe somewhere deep down, he knew that the land protects itself when it's loved right. And if a hellbender salamander and a jar full of lightning bugs wanted to help it along? Well, that was jest nature's way of evening the odds. Tom's not one to question a gift, especially not one that smells like damp earth and summer nights, like the creek before the world got so loud. He'll keep his mouth shut, his water clean, and his eyes open. Because out here, the land talks. And if you're smart, you listen.

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Hi folks, as you can probably see I'm still learning to use the Beehive editor. At any rate, in this issue of my newsletter I've given the second installment of Boogerlight Benny's Spooklight Legacy, and these are the departments the newsletter will cover.

Let me know what you think.

—Keith