Sunday Scribblings: My Backyard

My current backyard is great - I truly love it, and can't wait until we buy the place so I can do all kinds of cool stuff out there.  We have fig trees, kumquat trees, blueberry bushes, and flowering plants.  We have some awesome bamboo that grows along the fence line where the two next door houses are.  They provide an awesome barrier for sight and sound.  There's plenty of room for the dogs to run and play, which is one of the reasons we wanted this house to begin with.  There are bird feeders on many of the trees, and a perfect spot for a garden when we buy the place and I can plant one.  The best part, of course, is that the back fence has a gate, and if you go through that gate and down a little path, you get to a beautiful creek that is on protected land.  It's clear and cold and there's a waterfall that always produces the most lovely sound.  There's a fallen tree that makes a perfect bench.  I like to go down there and just sit and listen to the water and nature around me.

But the magical backyard will always be the one from my childhood.  I grew up on an 80 acre farm.  All of that land was my backyard, and we always played outside.  We had fields of soybeans and hay, and sometimes corn.  There were cow pastures and pecan orchards.  There were forests of pine trees, one of which had a hidden surprise, a little pond, nestled in the small gathering of trees.  I had many adventures, both real and imagined, on that land.  It is part of my soul in a way I can't quite explain.  My favorite part was this tree in the backyard.  It had vines climbing all over it, and one of the vines, for some reason, grew down and then up again.  It created a perfect swing.  I can't even begin to calculate the hours I spent sitting in that vine swing, reading a book or writing in my diary.  I'm sure this explains why I love being outdoors.  I haven't done enough of that lately - just going out to sit and commune with nature.  I should get back to that soon.