The Great, Wide Beyond

The other night, a friend and I climbed to the top of a foothill near my house. Though I went for drives all over the mountains when I first came to Boise, I had not yet been to the foothills that were only 5 blocks from my house... for the same reason I went to college in Wisconsin, 2 hours from Chicago, but never actually visited the city itself. Now that I know what there is to explore in that foothill I will be there often...

The point of this trip was to sit on the top of the hill and watch the meteor shower. We did this for a little while, but I was obligated to go to sleep before its peak at 2 AM in order to be awake for work. However, I was not disappointed. The first meteor we saw, which streaked across the sky like a flare, was the largest meteor I have ever seen.

As a physical geographer (I majored in enviornmental/physical geography in college) and a gardening enthusiast, I am constantly in awe of nature. It never disappoints me. Whether something as grand as a meteor or as small and intricate as a seed, I find all of it amazing and fascinating. After studying the smallest shred of botany in college and taking my physical geography classes, I find that looking at things scientifically and having an idea of how they work makes them more interesting.

But you don't have to be a "scientist" to enjoy nature. I was enjoying it long before I knew how anything worked. Gardening, especially, is whatever you want it to be. Enjoying it because you can feed yourself or enjoying it because you like to watch flowers grow are both legitimate reasons.

The reasons for gardening are as varied and complicated as people themselves. You may ask, what does a meteor have to do with gardening? The answer is, everything is connected. By starting a garden, you are plugging yourself into the natural world and connecting yourself on some level with the great, wide beyond.
And I think, personally, that that's absolutely amazing.