While the wilderness has pretty much been compromised, plants and animals survive the best they can. To them the presence of humans is simply another environmental stress on their population, so they adapt, or they find the places humans have neglected (or minimally impacted) to carve out a life. This is what journalist Marion T. Smith has found as he walked the rural roads of Georgia. Nature exists and persists all around us, he said. We just have to look around and pay attention. This book is the result of just such an activity, looking around over a period of seven years. The abundance and variety of natural things I found astounded me, he said. It is my hope that this collection will inspire others to pay attention to the natural world. Marion T. Smith is a retired journalist and author. He lives in Athens, Georgia with his daughter, three grandsons, two dogs, and two cats.