I have lived in the same house for 14 years; since I was 6 months old. As a small child, I spent a lot of time in my backyard, which is filled with trees, and gardens full of plants. At the far back of the yard, there is a swing set, surrounded by tall pine trees, and the ground is covered in green, leaf-covered vines, and pinecones. Towards the front of the yard, there are gardens filled with flowers, which are surrounded by fields of grass with clover. In the summer, the gardens are often filled with many different kinds of insects, and there are often birds and squirrels in the trees year-round.
Everyday for most of my life, I have found myself looking out the window to the back of my yard, constantly being aware of changes in the weather and the effect that the weather had had on all of the things in my yard. Year after year, as the seasons changed, I could see the color of the leaves on the trees changing from green to orange-red, and then gradually falling from the trees. And after the winter had ended and the weather brought warmer conditions, how small buds began forming on the trees again, which in turn would gradually become green leaves. With the many hours that I had spent outside, I could observe how all the gardens were changing, how everything was full of color in the summertime, and how the color turned to brown in colder months. When I was very young, I was afraid of most insects and spiders, and anything else that would crawl around outside. I had realized very soon that although there were many bugs in the summer; bees hovering lazily around the plants, and various insects crawling on the ground, these creatures could scarcely be found in the winter. I also had soon realized that this must have been because most of the bugs preferred warm weather and lively plants. Much of what I had first learned about biology and nature at an early age was from being in my backyard, and making observations and connecting the information that I had gathered from observations.
As I read this post, I found myself struck by how well you made commonplace events seem grand and full of wonder. Obviously, we've all seen the season change multiple times in our lives (every year, in fact),and yet you manage to keep me interested in your observations.
ReplyDeleteYou connect your daily and seasonal observations to your backyard and your understanding of biology--I liked the part about the emotional response to the bugs and how you later observed that they were not present in cold weather.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how accurate your backyard observations were in comparison to all of nature. It seems like by examining just the yard of your house you managed to learn valuable things about nature that are applicable on a larger scale as well. I wonder at what proportion your backyard would become a bad reference point to the rest of nature.
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