After long experience I am convinced that the best place to study
nature is at one’s own home,—on the farm, in the mountains, on
the plains, by the sea,—no matter where that may be. One has it all
about him then. The seasons bring to his door the great revolving cycle
of wild life, floral and faunal, and he need miss no part of the show.
At home one should see and hear with more fondness and sympathy.
Nature should touch him a little more closely there than anywhere
else. He is better attuned to it than to strange scenes. The birds about
his own door are his birds, the flowers in his own fields and wood are
his, the rainbow springs its magic arch across his valley, even the everlasting
stars to which one lifts his eye, night after night, and year after
year, from his own doorstep, have something private and personal
about them. The clouds and the sunsets one sees in strange lands move
one the more they are like the clouds and sunsets one has become familiar
with at home. The wild creatures about you become known to
you as they cannot be known to a passer-by. The traveler sees little of Nature that is revealed to the home-stayer. You will find she has made
her home where you have made yours, and intimacy with her there becomes
easy. Familiarity with things about one should not dull the edge
of curiosity or interest. The walk you take to-day through the fields
and woods, or along the river-bank, is the walk you should take tomorrow,
and next day, and next. What you miss once, you will hit upon
next time. The happenings are at intervals and are irregular. The play
of Nature has no fixed programme. If she is not at home to-day, or is
in a non-committal mood, call to-morrow, or next week. It is only when
the wild creatures are at home, where their nests or dens are made, that
their characteristics come out.
The Library of America • Story of the Week From American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (The Library of America, 2008), pages 168–71. Originally published in Field and Study (1919). From "Nature at Home" by JOHN BURROUGHS
https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Burroughs_Nature_Home.pdf
2 comments:
This is exactly how my daughter and I think - she loves to walk in her neighborhood but also to do the same hikes in the surrounding countryside at different times of the year. But her husband likes to go to new places all the time, and mine was like that, too. Thanks for a great quote.
Both kinds of walks are good for observing nature, aren't they?
When we lived north of Chicago, we resided on a street just one block from a forest preserve. Nearly everyday - or at least 3-5 days a week, I ran on the trails, sometimes in clear early morning light pushing a double baby jogger with a small biker trailing behind, sometimes by myself in the dusky evening. Every day something was slightly different on the trail - meadow grasses greening, wildflowers blooming, butterflies or birds hovering, berries ripening, grasses browning, seed pods bursting, snow burying, ice sparkling. I loved that trail. And it connected to another trail that went all the way along Lake Michigan up to Milwaukee and down to the city. Good city planning in evidence.
Even now, when I have a variety of running options, I like to do the same runs over and over, partly because that is one less decision I have to think about, partly because I know how far and long it will take, and partly to see what is going on with the gardens or the beaches this particular day.
Nevertheless, I do really like to try new hikes someplace different when we have the time.
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