Nature

I am a country girl at heart. I grew up in a town of less than 4,000 people. We moved there when I was eight, prior to that, we lived in a community with about 200 people–and that’s where I consider home.

Moving from the country to suburbia, where I now live, has brought some advantages–it’s nice to be able to go grocery shopping without worrying about the stores closing at 9, for instance.  However, while I love not having to worry about yard maintainance, I am keenly aware that the area surrounding my condo is far more black top than grass and flowers.

But, at the end of my parking lot lies a dirt road that’s been sealed off from vehicular traffic.  Crossing over that chain is like stepping into a different world. Rather than the oceans of asphalt, you have this:

I like to take the dogs back here, but I’d kinda forgotten about it.  See, it’s only good for dog walking during the spring–in the winter, it’s too wet and slick, and during the summer and fall all that pretty green grass dries up and distributes foxtails in little dogs coats, paws and in one terrifying instance, eyes.

But for now, it’s green enough that it’s a pleasure to walk through. I’m slightly amazed at how much it’s changed since the last time I had been back there.  For instance, apparently, a civilization of tiny plastic people rose and fell, leaving behind only ruins to prove of their exsistance:

One thing about living in Utah, if you’re not right in Salt Lake City, it’s not uncommon to find bits of rurality right in the middle of town.

Besides horses, I have bees, chickens, goats and cows for neighbors.

This year, in an effort to avoid walking a whole-gasp-tenth-wheeze-of a mile-gasp to find nature, I decided to see if I could bring nature to me.  A cheap hummingbird feeder later…

This is Herbert, and he is king.  There is at least one more hummingbird that visits me on a regular basis, but only if Herbert isn’t around. I’ve seen Bogey a couple of times today, but he’s too skittish to hang around when he sees me pulling out my camera. I can understand that, he might be nervous about pictures of him feeding here getting back to Herbert.

Herbert and Bogey are both male black-chinned hummingbirds, by the way. Herbert is back-lit in that picture, and most of the times that I’ve seen him, so it’s taken me a ridiculously long amount of time to figure that out.

It’s true that being out in nature–even just being outside is good for the psyche, good for the soul. It’s easy to forget that–at least it is for me.   So, get out and explore. Even if you go to a park or field or wooded area you think you know, you might be surprised what you find.

Advertisement

New semester, new drama

It’s currently a quarter to three. I have successfully avoided going to bed by cleaning house, doing homework and now writing a blog post.  It’s not that I don’t want to bed, it’s more that in the past few weeks I seem to have lost the ability to sleep. But, as it’s not affecting my daily activities, I’m more annoyed than concerned.

I survived last semester, despite what the frequency of my posting may have implied. In fact, I thrived. I got a 3.90 GPA for the semester. My GPA is now high enough that I can get a job on campus–you know, if there were a job opening on campus that I was qualified to do–and I have started summer semester.  I have two blocks of classes–Fit For Life (a health/exercise class) and 2D design first block, and then at the end of June, I’ll start stress management (stressed? who me?) and creative writing in the second block, with an online math class all semester long.

I’m beginning to think that the start-of-semester drama might just become a regular thing. I don’t know how what happened this week compares to what happened last semester–I suppose it’s worse, but I’m not as emotionally torn up about it.

Okay, so Monday, first day of class. Minor freak out because I’m the largest and most out of shape person in my Fit for Life class–even though that wasn’t really a surprise. Fat folk would tend to avoid that class, and get the required credit from a health class that would allow them to be sedentary. My 2D design class turned out to be nothing at all like I was expecting–and will require much more work. Slightly bigger freak out about that. After spending a lot of money on books, I came home, and began working on my online math class (I am NOT going to let myself fall behind) and then…blue screen of death.  A couple of hours trying to get the computer to restart, followed by a couple of phone calls to my computer engineer of a brother-in-law, and my hard drive died. Completely.

Yay.

Granted, it was much better to have this happen on the first day of the new semester rather than, say, three weeks ago when I was finishing up my final English paper and studying for finals, but it still left me in tears. Fortunately, the Brother-in-law has a several unused computers lying around his house and he (or, more properly, Sis) offered me use of one of them until I can get a new hard-drive.

So, Tuesday, no school, I went up to Sis’s house to trade computers (eventually, I was having car trouble on that day as well) and because she wasn’t feeling good, to keep her from killing her kids (it wasn’t QUITE that bad, but I did see some spectacular tantrums). This included several very educational games of “I Spy” to wit:

me: Is it a stoplight?

G: nope

me: is a go light?

G: YES!

It’s a little scary that I’m learning to think like a four-year old.

Then home, and more time and trips to Best Buy to set up the loaner computer than should have been strictly necessary. But, it works, I’m on line, and once again stressing over random story problems with no real-world application. But, once again, I hope that this constitutes all of the drama alotment for summer semester–or even just first block–so I can concentrate on my studying and getting through school as quickly as possible.