I now live in a retirement community with small houses and manicured lawns. But lucky for me, behind me is a little green space that is a drainage area for the neighborhood there. Someone has planted lovely, large maples, and the grass is not overly fed or weeded. And we have planted three trees in our yard and cultivated a little garden of perennials. On the days I cannot go outside I cam look out through the green space and watch the trees. I’m well acquainted now with the birds that live here and the squirrels and the rabbits in the voles . But I was surprised two weeks ago by a visit to the feeder of a redheaded woodpecker. Just a delight to see! I long for the ability to walk in open space in all kinds of weather. My open space is now just a few yards from my house , the size of one home lot. I find there reminders of the larger world I have enjoyed before I felt ill. I enjoy so much your writing and your pictures - my vicarious jaunts into the lovely world!
Kathryn, I am so glad you have some open-space to look out on, with those lovely maple trees, and the trees in your own yard plus the perennial garden. I know it's not the same as the way things were before your illness, but thank heavens for the bits of wildness you have, and for the birds who visit! As for a redheaded woodpecker--what a joy to see one right at your feeder! I believe that cultivating joy in the small bits of wildness nearby is sustaining to us all. Blessings!
We live in West Michigan on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. We have just been here six years and so we are still getting familiar with the physical geography. Seems the protected critical dunes are really important in this area. Climate change is impacting what trees now grow here. Change is happening.
When I was little, 3 or so, and we lived in San Bernardino, CA my grandmother took me for walks along the canyon behind our house. When I relayed the story to my Dad as an adult he laughed and told me it was a drainage culvert. Perspective is always key.
Perspective is key, and while that drainage culvert may have been engineered, I suspect it had been a canoncito (little canyon) originally, before arroyos and washes and small streams were all channelized, so your 3-year-old self wasn't entirely wrong.
I remember visiting Indiana Dunes several times as a child growing up in the Chicago area, and being fascinated by the dunes, both vegetated and not. I suspect that climate change will impact them in a whole host of ways we cannot imagine, but the overall ecosystem will survive, if not in the same form we are used to. If you ever venture to the west shore of Lake Michigan and explore the Green Bay area in Wisconsin, I remember a fascinating natural area there, The Ridges Sanctuary, that is an old dune system extending inland from the lake with two dozen species of native orchids among other fascinating plants growing in the dune-swale-dune alternations that give the place its name. https://www.ridgessanctuary.org
Walking this land can be a challenge. My neighbors and I walk our arroyo that runs through the community. Lumps and bumps and cactus make it a challenge, but we love it. We also have what we call our "park" - 50 hilly acres just for dogs, horses, and people. I find I get a much better workout trekking around there than walking our roads. When the day comes that I'm not living in this house, I believe my loss of the views of the mountains all around me will be my biggest sadness.
"Lumps and bumps and cactus" sounds like the title of a story about this landscape! I love that for you and your neighbors, the arroyo walk is a challenge, but one you love. If walking is too easy, we don't appreciate it as much, I think. I hope you'll be able to stay in your beloved house until, as a friend said about me and my house here, "they carry you out, toes up." Which will be a long time off, I hope!
Thanks for this Thursday Bonus, dear Susan. I look forward to being drawn into your draw many more times as you learn all about it in its various seasonal permutations.
"Drawn into your draw"--it's almost a pun! Thanks for the smile, and the support. I will definitely be writing and I think, taping some short videos, about life in this draw.
As you know, our landscape goes from lower to higher to much higher. My office window faces lower slopes and mountain tops. I love your descriptions of the draws, arroyos, canyons, and even drainage ditches. I envy your early morning walks and enjoy every haiku and photograph. I spend much time watching and enjoying our lush high desert foliage: sagebrush with its almost green leafy branches and stalks of amber seeds, rabbitbrush turned to cottontails in the fall, great basin rye with its pale yellow blades, empty aspen branches still clinging to bits of dark brown leaves, purple doc, a tall skinny beige mullein. Our birds in late fall are limited to chickadees, juncos, blue and white magpies, and, if we're lucky, a northern harrier or red-tailed hawk. The Asian doves visit the railing on our front porch from time to time and our cat Buttercup squeaks. And now, as I write, a soft wind is stirring every plant so they shudder back and forth. Low white spots of snow vary the fall vista. I have on my corkboard this somewhat edited quote from Wallace Stevens: After all, they know that to be real each had/To find for herself, her earth, her sky, her sea.
I love your description of the view from your office, Julie. (And I can envision it from being there.) Enjoy the breeze and the shuddering shrubs and basin wild rye, the aspen branches and the birds. May the whole community of that wild land bring you inspiration and joy. I'm so glad you're found your earth, your sky, and your sea of sagebrush and rabbitbrush there!
I now live in a retirement community with small houses and manicured lawns. But lucky for me, behind me is a little green space that is a drainage area for the neighborhood there. Someone has planted lovely, large maples, and the grass is not overly fed or weeded. And we have planted three trees in our yard and cultivated a little garden of perennials. On the days I cannot go outside I cam look out through the green space and watch the trees. I’m well acquainted now with the birds that live here and the squirrels and the rabbits in the voles . But I was surprised two weeks ago by a visit to the feeder of a redheaded woodpecker. Just a delight to see! I long for the ability to walk in open space in all kinds of weather. My open space is now just a few yards from my house , the size of one home lot. I find there reminders of the larger world I have enjoyed before I felt ill. I enjoy so much your writing and your pictures - my vicarious jaunts into the lovely world!
Kathryn, I am so glad you have some open-space to look out on, with those lovely maple trees, and the trees in your own yard plus the perennial garden. I know it's not the same as the way things were before your illness, but thank heavens for the bits of wildness you have, and for the birds who visit! As for a redheaded woodpecker--what a joy to see one right at your feeder! I believe that cultivating joy in the small bits of wildness nearby is sustaining to us all. Blessings!
We live in West Michigan on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. We have just been here six years and so we are still getting familiar with the physical geography. Seems the protected critical dunes are really important in this area. Climate change is impacting what trees now grow here. Change is happening.
When I was little, 3 or so, and we lived in San Bernardino, CA my grandmother took me for walks along the canyon behind our house. When I relayed the story to my Dad as an adult he laughed and told me it was a drainage culvert. Perspective is always key.
Perspective is key, and while that drainage culvert may have been engineered, I suspect it had been a canoncito (little canyon) originally, before arroyos and washes and small streams were all channelized, so your 3-year-old self wasn't entirely wrong.
I remember visiting Indiana Dunes several times as a child growing up in the Chicago area, and being fascinated by the dunes, both vegetated and not. I suspect that climate change will impact them in a whole host of ways we cannot imagine, but the overall ecosystem will survive, if not in the same form we are used to. If you ever venture to the west shore of Lake Michigan and explore the Green Bay area in Wisconsin, I remember a fascinating natural area there, The Ridges Sanctuary, that is an old dune system extending inland from the lake with two dozen species of native orchids among other fascinating plants growing in the dune-swale-dune alternations that give the place its name. https://www.ridgessanctuary.org
Walking this land can be a challenge. My neighbors and I walk our arroyo that runs through the community. Lumps and bumps and cactus make it a challenge, but we love it. We also have what we call our "park" - 50 hilly acres just for dogs, horses, and people. I find I get a much better workout trekking around there than walking our roads. When the day comes that I'm not living in this house, I believe my loss of the views of the mountains all around me will be my biggest sadness.
"Lumps and bumps and cactus" sounds like the title of a story about this landscape! I love that for you and your neighbors, the arroyo walk is a challenge, but one you love. If walking is too easy, we don't appreciate it as much, I think. I hope you'll be able to stay in your beloved house until, as a friend said about me and my house here, "they carry you out, toes up." Which will be a long time off, I hope!
Thanks for this Thursday Bonus, dear Susan. I look forward to being drawn into your draw many more times as you learn all about it in its various seasonal permutations.
"Drawn into your draw"--it's almost a pun! Thanks for the smile, and the support. I will definitely be writing and I think, taping some short videos, about life in this draw.
It was intended to be a pun, but you call it "almost a pun" so perhaps I should just settle for a double entendre...
I like double entendre even better than a pun for that--it just sounds cooler!
As you know, our landscape goes from lower to higher to much higher. My office window faces lower slopes and mountain tops. I love your descriptions of the draws, arroyos, canyons, and even drainage ditches. I envy your early morning walks and enjoy every haiku and photograph. I spend much time watching and enjoying our lush high desert foliage: sagebrush with its almost green leafy branches and stalks of amber seeds, rabbitbrush turned to cottontails in the fall, great basin rye with its pale yellow blades, empty aspen branches still clinging to bits of dark brown leaves, purple doc, a tall skinny beige mullein. Our birds in late fall are limited to chickadees, juncos, blue and white magpies, and, if we're lucky, a northern harrier or red-tailed hawk. The Asian doves visit the railing on our front porch from time to time and our cat Buttercup squeaks. And now, as I write, a soft wind is stirring every plant so they shudder back and forth. Low white spots of snow vary the fall vista. I have on my corkboard this somewhat edited quote from Wallace Stevens: After all, they know that to be real each had/To find for herself, her earth, her sky, her sea.
I love your description of the view from your office, Julie. (And I can envision it from being there.) Enjoy the breeze and the shuddering shrubs and basin wild rye, the aspen branches and the birds. May the whole community of that wild land bring you inspiration and joy. I'm so glad you're found your earth, your sky, and your sea of sagebrush and rabbitbrush there!