I have a confession. I am bored with trees. There. I feel a little bit better. Where I live, there are a lot of trees. And they are mostly green. Most of the time.Don't get me wrong, trees are wonderful, wonderful living things. They are beautiful, green, healthy pillars of nature and history.....if you have never listened to the song "Heart of the Wood" by Joey & Rory, do it now, I swear you will shed a tear. I'm so sorry, I could download that Play list thingy for you to listen to it on, but I'm not. I've had enough of a time loading photos these past few days, I'm not pushing my luck! But here is a link to a great YouTube video of the recording of that song.
I crave wide open spaces, I've said it before. Maybe in a past life, I lived on the open prairie, with endless land meeting the sky....maybe I crave what I once had, what feels like home, deep in my soul. Or, maybe I lived deep in the dark, damp forest, and now after one and a half lifetimes of it, I am just really, really, tired of it. Or, maybe I've taken too much Zyrtec this week and these thoughts are getting a little too....deep.
Truly, I love vast expansiveness. The blowing grasses, the sagebrush, the desert....I don't care, as long as I can look 50 feet in front of me without seeing nothin' but bark. Maybe it's the light. I love the light. Forests don't have enough light.
I suppose if I lived on the prairie, I'd crave the trees. Are you a dweller in the trees or a puff of wind across the open plains? Do you crave one or the other? Or am I just hungry for something else because it's not what I have? Isn't that how it always is.
The best of both worlds would be nice. Sparse, lofty pine forests for shade, sparkling creeks, all tucked amidst meadows of open prairie....is there such a place? Do you live there?Know of any property for sale?
Hay Pony Girl,
ReplyDeleteBoredom must be a theme today, great minds think alike! I have to say, I like me a good tree. Maybe because I grew up in the trees where the Vampires live, HEE HEE. When the Parents lived at the beach, Mom always used to love the wide open parts by the dunes, but I still liked the houses that had some trees. However, I do not like a house to be completely surrounded by trees, making it dark. I think a good mix is called for, the best of both worlds. I agree about the darkness, I'd pass on living in a forest, that's for sure!
I love my trees! But I also don't want my house surrounded by trees! I have a good mix here, trees, no trees. But not enough wide open spaces for you! Some people here in the neighborhood, their houses are buried in trees! There is no way they could ever get any sunlight by the house! I want sunlight by my house and around my house! I crave the sun! I know, I am living in the wrong state for that!
ReplyDeleteYep I'm gonna say the grass is always greener on the other side LOL!! I live on a hill and the only tree's I have are lining my driveway and behind the house I have a few. But most of the land here is open...To much wind for these open spaces LOL!! I love tree's and I would love more of them, I would also like hills...
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons we love this little property so much is because we do have the best of both worlds. Cedar trees, which the horses use for shelter in bad weather, dot the front of the 5 acres. Black oaks and pin oaks are spread across the middle. The horses hang out there when it's hot. The rest is open, and where the Boyz run and play.
ReplyDeleteLots of property for sale.
We have lots of sky, and very few trees - I love the openness and the light. That said, I'd sure love some treelines for windbreaks in the winter!
ReplyDeleteTrees or no trees - I need to live where I can see the horizon that I grew up with, or I feel trapped. My mother grew up on a little fishing island, and she always longed for the sea. What did you grow up with?
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the Panhandle of Texas, nothing but land as far as you could see and WIND! Hated it. Moved South to find trees. I think there is a happy medium.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you! I love and crave the wide open spaces! That's one thing I didn't like about living in Pa. for that short time. I felt trapped. Now, don't get me wrong! I like a good stand of woods-especially for huntin, but I want to see for miles and miles. You should get some land down around here! You can get a good sized parcel that has both prairie and woods and you'd have the best of both. We have beautiful windswept prairies. The Flint Hills are close to us. All along 1-70 is gorgeous if you like prairie, deep draws, and stands of trees by creeks!
ReplyDeleteI love Joey and Rory's song too!
Oh, about the cake for Wy's B.D. Yeah, I made it and it was a lot of fun. He chose to eat the barn and stamped up ever last tiny crumb to it too! Ha!!
Pony Girl, I am in New England and trees are everywhere! Some of my midwestern friends have said they feel claustrophobic when they visit here! What is really interesting is riding in the winter in the same woods that were all leafy in the summer. Suddenly new aspects of the landscape are visible! Like that steep drop off a few feet away! Yikes!
ReplyDeletePony girl .you are describing where I live , trees ,open fields , a nice mix of both! Add to that a 4 hour drive and I am in the mountains! And it is wonderful! though I have to say the photos of where you are are beautiful too!
ReplyDelete{City Girl}~ Ah, yes! I forgot that the trees make a good wind block. Good point! :)
ReplyDeleteI need wide open spaces as well. When I visit my parents in town in their subdivision surrounded by houses, in the same home I grew up in, I get claustrophobic!
ReplyDeleteBTW, I noticed your pics and past blog posts about Buck Branaman. He will be in my area in September doing a weekend riding clinic. I'm very tempted to sign up!
I've lived in SC my whole life where there is lots of green all around and lots of trees. I fell in LOVE with Arizona while visiting my grandparents. I love love love the dessert landscape. There are still green things here and there, but they certainly aren't like SC trees. I forget how much I crave the dessert until I am in it again, and I just love it.
ReplyDelete{DVM's Wife}~ Regarding Buck, GO! Don't hesitate. It will change everything. He is so amazing, just listening to him talk, and share his stories. It applies to life, beyond just horsesmanship. I can't wait to see him again!
ReplyDeletehave to have my trees! but i like open fields too. lexington has such beautiful fields and the farms can see eachother without being so close, so i guess i like both...
ReplyDeleteI think I'm partial to wide open spaces. I have an inexplicable love for deserts, even though I've never been to one, save for passing through.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I live in the city. I mean deep in urban city. So, really, I'm thankful for trees, creeks, plains, anything. I just want to look out my window one day and not see a building.
Our land here is very, very flat. It's strange because you go out of our county and people got hills. Not big ones, just hills.
ReplyDeleteI prefer the forest. The noises, the sounds, protection from the wind but every once and a wile (ok once a day or more) it's fun just to gallop across the open fields and feel the wind in your hair.
A lot of trees are being cut down around here for stupid sub division development and all that crap. It's sad.
As a Midwesterner....trees are essential to our existance!!!
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, in Nebraska, all you see is WIDE OPEN FIELDS (of corn, beans, or hay), and most farmsteads are surrounded with trees. Our windbreaks are all that keep our old farm houses standing when the rough weather sets in! ;)
I think Nebraska is a perfect combination of wide open space and beautiful wooded areas.
The old farmstead I live on is 10 acres with a mixture of grass pasture and a few acres of thick woods. Our 10 acres of heaven are surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of acres of crop ground. I am constantly amazed at how hard the wind will be blowing across the fields, and yet, our front yard is complete protected.
We come close to having both worlds in Kentucky I'd say. I love both. I also love not having neighbors right under my nose. I love living where I do and I honeslty don't think I would change anything about it. We are very blessed.
ReplyDeleteI hear ya' Pony Girl, and I have done similar post's in the past. Part of me thinks that we want what we don't have, but then part of me thinks that we should be able to have the best of both worlds, right??? LOL!!!
ReplyDeleteThere are some beautiful areas that have a mix of both in parts of CO, WY, MT, ID, NM....you get the idea. :) Can you tell I have done my research??? Of course, Eastern WA has some nice places too, but it is a little more difficult to find both and still be "pretty" over there (I think anyway).
I favor wide open spaces. I LOVE the desert. I love seeing the bright blue sky, everything looks more vivid, the earthy colors, seeing the brown mountains. Yes, I would move to the desert in a heatbeat if I could. You could add a pine tree or two!
ReplyDeleteHaving grown up and lived most of my life in Northwest Indina, I am used to trees of all different kinds -- evergreen and deciduous. One year I left in spring for an extended visit out west, and when I returned in late summer was just amazed at how lush and green everything looked. I can appreciate the wide open spaces though, and the desert has its own beauty. My father was from the mountains in North Carolina, and he never got used to the flat land of Indiana. We are close to Lake Michigan here in NWI, so I am partial to having beaches and dunes as well.....
ReplyDeleteI live where I feel right at home. Like you, trees fence me in and make me feel crowded and claustrophobic. I must be able to see for miles, unobstructed by trees, building, clutter.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is where I live. We do have trees, but they are the cute bushy juniper and pinon trees, rarely above 25 feet tall. We have forests of them, but living in the mountains, they rarely obstruct our expansive views, because you are always within walking distance of a hill, and most valleys don't have many junipers or pinon anyway.
We do have several fruit trees beside our house and I enjoy their decidious leaves, giving us sun in the winter and shade in the summer. And they, too, never get taller than 25 feet.
One huge old Oak tree in a field is really wonderful, too. Add an old wooden swing and talk about about summertime bliss.
We lived in South Carolina for 7 yrs and there were so many tress, they blocked out the sky. I felt like I was suffocating.
I will say that the view from our second story bedrooms was wonderful to watch the birds and squirrels cavorting in the lofty branches.
Our here in New Mexico, it's impossible to ever get lost, because there are always landmarks...like the mountains and volcanos, the prairie. In South Carolina, it was easy to get lost, as you coulnd't see 500 feet beyond the walls of trees.
Trees are beautiful, but I have to see the sky. The sky for me is....life.
~Lisa
{Lisa}~ Nice comment, my sentiments exactly! I love to see the sky, too. When I take pictures, I can rarely get the sky in because there are so many trees. Frequently, it actually blocks out a lot of that good late afternoon sunlight I love for photography.....
ReplyDeleteWhen we moved from Western Washington (tons of trees) to Idaho, we loved seeing the sunrises and sunsets across the whole horizon, and the wide open beauty of the desert. But we sure do love it when we can get up into the mountains surrounded by trees. I think one needs some of both!
ReplyDeleteI agree..a little of both would be nice. I'm a prairie dweller. You can't beat the sunrises and sunsets from the prairie, but it is very windy. Last week I visited the forest and when I stepped out of the car and got a whiff of that wonderful pine smell, I thought I was in heaven. Yeah...I think we miss what we don't have. Forests and prairies are both nice. I'd like a home on the range and a cabin in the woods.
ReplyDeleteWhen you don't have trees, trail rides are really, really HOT!! We don't have many trees and I always look at trail riding pictures from people's blogs who live by big trees and they have beautiful trial rides.
ReplyDeleteI think I would like a little of both worlds. A few trees and some open grassy prairies. I would love to have some rolling hills. It's nothing but flat flat flat here. Sigh......
Oh, yes...you and me, both! I love riding in the mountains here, but am so longing for a ride in Burns where I can see forEVER across that high desert!
ReplyDeleteYou know...Gtyup should be able to give us a lovely tour down there...we really need to set a date!
I love that picture of you and My Boy. Just fantastic...you should print that one and frame it.
ReplyDeleteWell, I love trees and being up in the mountains with the amazing smells of the forest. I admire wide open spaces too, but along with that in many cases comes the wind. And I hate wind.
Ideally, I can imagine living in the mountains where there are lots of trees, but not an extremely dense forrest, so there is planty of bright sunlight, but shelter from the wind and elements. And the cool cottage with a bustling stream out back to lull me into sweet dreams would be nice.
Is that too much to ask for?
I love trees and we have plenty around our farm. However, I grew up in North Dakota and love the prarie. You truly can see forever.
ReplyDeleteHi! I am new to your blog. Where do you live? I live in Oregon and your pictures look similar. Also, I saw the little pony Black Jack you used to have. Is he still alive? My sons go to camp in Colorado and they have lots of horses there. My youngest son's favorite is a pony named Black Jack that looks like yours. I think the Black Jack at camp is near 30 years old now and retired.
ReplyDelete{Striving For Savvy}~ Email me at ponygirlridesagain@gmail.com and we can talk more about Black Jack, thanks for stopping by! ;)
ReplyDeleteOh give me the wide open spaces and miles and miles of sky. I've lived in forested areas and I never could figure out my directions-LOL. A sliver of sky doesn't give you much of an opportunity to see the sun(or the moon) just starting to peak over the horizon. Or blazing sunsets that run along the horizon for miles. I like being able to see the next town over...that is 24 miles away.
ReplyDeleteIt's true, trees are wonderful protection from wind and summer heat, but I like being able to get away from them too.
What interesting comments...I would die on the prairie or in the desert. I need trees...I need mountains...but I do love open meadows in the middle of forests :)
ReplyDeletePaint Girl: Colorado has over 300 days of Sunshine/year...Daisy think Fritzy would realllly like it here ;)
I love hearing what other people love about their home.
I live in my dream paradise :) Where do you think you'll end up Pony Girl?
I hear ya... lots and lots of trees on Granite Glen.. and hills!!! I'd love a clear open flat to gallop on... or watch Mr I campdraft on, anyway!!!
ReplyDeleteI too feel a little hemmed by timber and landscape sometimes. Yet I love the constant change in vista as I drive up and over our rolling granite hills too.
A bit of both... is that called fence-sitting in your country too??
:-)
BB
I love that photo of you and your Boy, it's great! We also have open spaces and I call it the prairie where we live because the wind is so strong (east/west) across our porch no trees to block it. At least when the corn is up the fields are full and it does act as a wind shield but then you have corn on all sides and I feel hemmed in! And.....you cannot see anything on these country roads ....just corn! At night people just flash their headlights off instead of stopping at the 4-way stops...nice huh!? Dangerous!
ReplyDeleteThere are hardly any trees in Lubbock, my dh is a home builder. There problem solved! Oh, how do you do you like blowing dirt?
ReplyDeleteI used to live in Albany, Texas. It had trees...now I live in Lubbock and we have hardly any trees. Makes me sad!
Hi PG,
ReplyDeleteI agree 110% with LuLo and
C-ingspots: The picture of you and your Appy is priceless. You are so photogenic and so is MyBoy.
It would be wonderful to have you as a neighbor in Jack county, Tx. However, I don't think you would like the 100+ heat in the summers and not much shade from the thorny mesquite trees. And the wind blows the dust... but I love the hills and the green in the spring.
FYI: Jack county is 100 miles northwest of Dallas.
I do love Colorado, my family and I used to vacation at the YMCA Camp of the Rockies in Estes Park, CO. I like the cool air.
Have a great weekend and be safe.
Garlic Man
ps Did I mention that I like that picture?
I used to ride a lot in the forest as a trail guide, and it always was a pleasure to get up above the tree line and see the view just open up. Having a horizon and a great wide sky makes the world seem so much broader and, I have to say, more beautiful and inviting.
ReplyDeleteThough a nice oak or beech forest is rather special too, with those lovely gnarled trunks and branches.
I love the trees around my place - can't see the neighbors and they can't see me.
ReplyDelete