Hoping for a New Beginning

The holidays mark the end of the year. It is supposed have you feeling good and ready for the new year. Unfortunately that is not always the case. With work, school and holiday festivities here, there has been no time to go in the yard and enjoy the cold weather that has blessed the valley. The days are shorter and crazier. Everyone is trying to get their holiday shopping done and instead of being peaceful, it is hectic. I haven't had time to watch the birds fly around my yard or go outside and see the tree branches dancing in the wind. 

Honestly, I only pay attention to my backyard when the summer heat is here or if there is a covering of snow. Sadly there has been no snow lately. I want to pay attention, but I need something to grab it. It is hard to watch something so bland when there are other things you could be doing. 

I think I love the snow so much because it is more than just snow to me. It represents purity, beauty and a new start. "To see a snowflake in your dream represents purity and perfection." (Dream Mood) I think snow is what I need. In past years snow has ended a year and started another. Without that pure white coating it feels consecutive.  Like there is nothing new to see. The snow would be like a cleaning that my yard desperately needs.  I do believe that my yard wants the snow too. Without the burning sun or the frigid sky, it is nothing more than a storage place. I believe that it wants us to visit it and play in it. It needs the company of the others through the cold months. However, we aren't ready. My family and I need the yard to have  new start before we can continue with it.  It needs to be a new, pure and perfect yard. Maybe that is why I keep day dreaming about snowflakes storming in.

"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?" (Brainy Quote) When I was smaller, the holidays made it seem like I was living in a different dimension. The world seemed limitless and the snow never stopped falling. I would play in the yard everyday making snowmen and snow angels. But now it is 2014 and we have had barely a fragment of snow. There is no new world for me to visit and no enchanting little snowflakes landing on my window sill. 

I am not mother nature. I cannot make it snow and I cannot force the pattern to change. But as the year ends I have hope that one day I'll wake in the pure world that visited me when I was small. Everything will be new, white ad perfect. I will finally have something new to discover. As for now, my yard continues its dull path. Maybe with luck, my yard will flourish in the new year. It will be exciting and everything I've dreamed about. I will just have to wait and see.   

"Snowflake." Dream Moods: Dream Symbol. Dream Moods, 22 Sept. 2014. Web. 13 Dec. 2014.

Priestley, J.B. "Snow Quotes." Brainy Quotes. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.

Dull

“Autumn...the year's last, loveliest smile."

- William Cullen Bryant

Winter. It snuck up behind us while we weren't looking. I think it's interesting how fall and winter always seem to come out of nowhere in Reno. One day it is too hot to even leave the pool then a week later

it's too cold to leave the house without a sweater. 

This year it had really sprung upon me quickly. As soon as it started to freeze up a bit I stayed inside. Usually I just sit inside the comfort of my house and look outside into my backyard through the glass door. It is too cold to step outside and I prefer to stay warm inside while observing. I see the yard, but I hardly ever see anything new or interesting. All I see is death and dirt. All of my vegetables and fruits and flowers are dead and long gone.

When I decided to walk around on November 19th, I only found more death. I found a dried up colorless tomatillo lying on dirt surrounded by dead leaves and twigs. The once vibrant green fruit now had a white colored husk without a bush to hold onto.

Dead tomatillo

I appreciate the seasons. Each one can teach us something different about life and they have their own little beauties. Yoko Ono once said 

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.

 Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.

Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.

Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.” 

I think the reason she said that Fall has to do with reverence is because it's the last time of the year that will will see color.  In winter everything is covered with white fluff but, in fall there are beautiful colors. There is brown, orange and red and even some green. In spring and summer we go about our day without noticing all of the vibrant colors. We gain respect for the seasons that have already passed us by.

 As for my yard the colors aren't as vibrant as summer or spring, but they are still there. There is green in the bushes, brown in the dirt and orange in the leaves. 

Picture of a fence, two bushes and dead leaves. 

Even though everything is wilting, autumn is still beautiful and graceful. It is the years last color show and its helps us appreciate the seasons even more. 

 William Cullen Bryant. "Indian Summer". Quotes About Autumn. Good Reads. n.d. web. 30 Nov. 2014

Yoko Ono. Quotes About Autumn. Good Reads. n.d. 30. Nov. 2014

Abandonment

My Ghost Yard

If I presented this picture to you and told you that this picture was taken in a ghost town, you might think that these people hit the road and left everything where it is. That they had no time put things back or grab them. However, this is just a picture of my yard that is in a town with many people and has not been effected by a disaster of any sort. Since it stated to get cold my family and I haven't visited this area very often. We completely left everything from summer and didn't pick it up. 

As humans we don't like to be in situations that displease us and the cold displeases most of my family. That is why we left the hose in the last place we watered, the chairs facing each other and my sisters table still out with the umbrella on. However, I have no idea why there is a table on top of a chair, why the chair is in one of the gardens, and why the barque is in another. I asked all around my house and everyone answered the same thing, "I don't know. 

My family has abandoned this yard to face the cold seasons all by itself. Besides observing it, I have not been in the yard. I rather be inside then face the frigid wind of autumn. My ghost yard has to bear the cold air by itself for the most part. I will just be watching from a warm home. 

Good Adventure?

I often compare my backyard to others. For example, my backyard isn't nearly as big as my cousins and it isn't as beautiful my moms friend's. I look it as unappealing and boring. It's almost like you have black licorice and the rest of the world has fancy chocolate fudge. Obviously a big difference.

However sometimes it does surprise me. 

On October 29th my family and I made a wonderful discovery.

"There were quails in our back yard. There was, what I am assuming, a mommy quail and a daddy quail. They had about six baby chicks with them running around like crazy." (Field Notes)

They were a light brown with small dark brown spots. At one point the babies were scattered around making lots of noise when the mom made a high pitched squeak. All the babies ran over to her and got in a single file line and followed their mother. 

There has been one thing bothering me since this experience. Why were there baby quails running around in October? I looked and looked but I have yet to find when quails lay eggs, how long it takes for a quail to hatch or what time of year they usually hatch. Finding nothing bothers me. 

This blog is supposed to be about my backyard and all the little adventures it holds. To me good adventures include (1) finding new things, (2) going out of my comfort zone, (3) coming across beautiful encounters, (4) learning from the things you find, and (5) if they leave you in wonder. From this small adventure, I am left in wonder more than anything. 

Grow

My backyard grows a lot of things. It contains four small gardens. On the side of our garage we grow tomatillo plants. Thank goodness for those plants because those are the only plants that grow an abodance.  I really enjoy looking at these plants because they are like little green bells. They also have bright yellow flowers and catch your eye since the whole plant is green.

Tomatillo Plant

The longest garden in the back grows a huge variety of plants. It grows pumpkin, a few corn stalks, zucchini, red peppers and sun flowers. We just stared to grow the sunflowers this year and I thought it was gonna be a wonderful idea because watching a sunflower grow is quite amazing. They shoot up out of nowhere, then their leaves start to come out and before you know it you have a flower bigger than any other. Sadly they didn't last very long because the vicious bugs that hide in my yard started to eat it and eventually they died. Except for one. There was a smaller one who for some strange reason never go eaten completely. That one was my favorite and the strongest. Until my sister decided to yank it out. 

We also have a garden directly behind our garage. There we grow more tomatillos, carrots and cilantro. I find myself visiting this garden the most since it it grows carrots and cilantro. During the summer I would grab a few carrot, wash them and them eat them raw. I thought they tasted better than the ones they sell at the store. Maybe its the fact that I was involved in helping them grow, or the way the soil made them taste. i also liked eating them because they always acquired a strange shape and that made me smile and laugh. My family would always fight over who had the strangest looking carrot. The cilantro I used for many recipes over the summer. I loved being able to go into my yard and grab what I need.  

Our last one is my favorite.  When my uncle past away we planted some flowers he had in his own yard. I have no idea what they're called but they are beautiful.  They are red, pink and orange all the combinations in between. They are amazing. 

Background to the Backyard

My family and I first moved to our home about six years ago. I was excited because I thought that the house had lots of potential for a beautiful garden. It had nice soil and a huge space to work with. The two yards (the front and back) are connected since my house has absolutely no fence. I wish we had a fence to break up the two because our front yard is beautiful. My front yard covered with green grass and has two large dark green bushes that frame the two front windows. 

However, I wasn't the only one excited. My family was also wanted to change our unappealing backyard into a forest of many different plants. My grandparents and I visited Home Depot to grab some vibrant flowers for our gardens. We also grabbed vegetables and fruits.  

Out of all the places I could have grown my colorful cluster I choose my front yard. In the front there is a little area fenced by bricks in between the two large bushes. The rest of the backyard would go to my Step Dad and Grandpa. They wanted to grow heaps of vegetables and fruits. They wanted to grow these because they wanted to use fresh ingredients when my Grandma cooked. Some of these fruits and vegetables still stay year after year, but sadly some did end up not coming back the next year.

When I used to picture my backyard back then, I used to think that it was gonna be full of life in no time. I though all of our plants would enlarge and give us a great deal of produce. I thought we would be able to sell some of our vibrant products but the amounts have stayed the same throughout the years. A couple here, a few there. As for my grass, it hasn't grown past the front yard. I still have hope that one day the garden will surprise everyone and it will sprout a mass amount of beautiful plants.