My naturalist class has been pretty amazing. I found out its okay and cool to stop & do journal notes. Usually I am running or hiking with specific objectives. Always goal oriented. Plus the inaturalist.org website engages citizen naturalists and pro’s in identifying animals, plants and more. What a great new social media — engaging in the discovery of nature with other people.
One of the many things I have learned from the California Naturalist program is to look at my surroundings with new eyes. It’s not that I haven’t appreciated them and loved them. But now I look more closely at the redwood trees surrounding our home. The tallest trees in the world! And counted them, looking at new trees and older trees. 119 redwood trees around our house. How lucky can we be? I even looked at the 1926 burn and calculated that one of our burned trees is 106 years — and in coastal redwood years, that’s pretty young.
I think those trees were waiting for me to learn more about them. To discover how
even more extraordinary they are. To appreciate them even more and understand what it does to them to top them, cut them, put kids equipment on them, pop them through decks, and shine accent lights on their majesty. Redwoods in California and Oregon are the last left in the world.
I think this is the same with my characters in writing. They are waiting for me to look more closely and discover all their amazing traits.