Relearning My Home Area

Linda Bittle
Linda Bittle Posts: 1,500 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited November 2020 in Pull Up a Rocking Chair: General Chat

Returning to Missouri after 10 years in western Washington and 4 in Idaho is an interesting experience. The most obvious difference is that the trees are so short!

The birds are different. I saw a flycatcher the other day!

The weather is different - I'd not missed humidity in the summer time. That, and tornado season, and chiggers kept me happily away for all these years.

My mom is delighted that I'm back, and my sister is relieved. (My brother is still in Oklahoma.) And I am content that moving back was the right thing to do.

I'm kind of excited to get out the field guides and relearn the local trees, plants, birds, and animals.

Any other nature nerds here?

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Comments

  • shllnzl
    shllnzl Posts: 1,816 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I would guess that we all are nature nerds, I know I am.

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  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,354 admin

    I remember similar experiences when I went back tot he farm to take care of my grandmother in her last years. Prior to that, I'd moved 12 times in 15 years. It was fun to get to know the swamps again. Only those who have experienced the swamps first hand know just how beautiful they can be... black water full of catfish, snapping turtles and gators... venus fly traps and other rare flowers, spanish moss, all sorts of colorful birds from big herons and cranes, even eagles, to blue birds, finches and cardinals... snakes, deer, beaver, coon... and so many bugs.... lots of things that bite and sting, but it was nice. But for a long time, I'd get up to go to the bathroom at night and run smack into a wall because I thought I in another house.

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  • silvertipgrizz
    silvertipgrizz Posts: 1,990 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Yep one of my fav things here in Okla are the 'lightening bugs' I will always remember one night out with my boyfriend we were driving around a lake we liked and when we turning onto an off road with pic nic tables we were greeted by one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen... a huge evergreen tree so full of lightening bugs flickering on and off all over it..it was like a giant Christmas tree. I see that picture in my mind every so often and it is always instant relaxation.

    Welcome home @Mary Linda Bittle

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  • marcy_northlightsfarm
    marcy_northlightsfarm Posts: 103 ✭✭✭

    I just love to get out into the forest and listen to the birds while I search for plants and fungi. Yesterday I took a long bike ride and made a point to stop in a neighboring town. Up on a ballparks very tall light post is a Osprey nest. I took a picture of what I think is the female and a video of her talking to me!

    IMG_1830.jpg


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  • Linda Bittle
    Linda Bittle Posts: 1,500 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @silvertipgrizz , yeah, I saw lightning bugs the other night for the first time since 2006! Not many, but a few. I practically jumped up and down and clapped my hands for joy!

    I imagine my new neighbors are taking notes about all the strange stuff I do. Just wait until I get my tracking stuff out and start staring at the ground!

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  • Linda Bittle
    Linda Bittle Posts: 1,500 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @judsoncarroll4 , I've been careful to leave the bathroom light on for just this reason.

    I love your description of the swamps. That's one region that I haven't explored - yet.

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  • Lisa K
    Lisa K Posts: 1,839 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Mary Linda Bittle happy to see you go to Missouri safely!

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  • Linda Bittle
    Linda Bittle Posts: 1,500 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Lisa K, despite the virus, the protests, and the weather we really had an easy trip.

    Briefly lost late at night, in a can't-see-where-we-are-going downpour in Nampa, Idaho. Sammy threw up all over my lap at this point. (But we upped his seizure meds for the trip, so that was his only travel issue. Eliza Jane rode really well for a cat!)

    We got ahead of the 8 inches of snow that hit Wyoming, and behind a storm that produced a tornado in Nebraska.

    One night in a sketchy hotel hidden behind a truck stop in we-aren't-really-sure, Nebraska.

    And my sister insisted on filling up the gas tank in what is probably the least safe neighborhood in Kansas City.

    So adventures for sure. But no real troubles.

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  • Lisa K
    Lisa K Posts: 1,839 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Mary Linda Bittle wow what an adventure!

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  • velokigate
    velokigate Posts: 6 ✭✭✭

    I'm definitely a Nature Nerd! I've lived in east Tennessee all but 4 years of my life and I'm amazed everyday at something I observe in Nature. The sunrises...the call of the red-winged blackbird or of the chipper lil goldfinches...the way the wind turns the leaves on the silver maple or the shodows the sun creates in a cloud...the orange-red of a sunset or the pungent scent of a just-mowed Sweet Annie. Then you add the antics and habits of the barnyard critters! I know I see and hear these everyday but they never ever get old.

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  • Jens the Beekeeper
    Jens the Beekeeper Posts: 643 admin

    Nature nerd 🤣🤣🤣 yep count me in

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