Enjoy Nature at Home

     There was a time when I yearned to go to far away places to experience nature; and I still do once in a while.  But I quickly realized there is enough natural happenings in every direction within an hour's drive of home to keep me busy and inspired the rest of my life.  No matter the time of year or day, place or the weather, there is always something of interest and inspiration to experience in nature.  Furthermore, nature is always evolving, and with the seasons, there is always something new in nature to experience.  So, while it may be fashionable, and impressive to some people, to travel to much of the world to enjoy natural happenings, it isn't necessary.  Naturalist-writer John Burroughs wrote, "One has only to sit in the woods or fields or by the shore of river or lake and nearly everything of interest will come round to him.  What a voyage we make without leaving for a night our own fireside".  St. Pierre stated " A sense of nature's power and mystery shall spring up as fully in one's heart after he has made a circuit of his own fields as after returning home from a voyage around the world".  And Henry David Thoreau predicted that " it you sit in one place in the woods or fields, sooner or later every inhabitant will pass by.  Obviously, all three men said the same thing.  And I do, too!  All this world, all the places to be, most of it I will never see.  My world is close to home.  It changes every day so I need not go away.  And neither does anyone else to note the beauties and intrigues of nature.  The natural world is basically the same the world over.
     Carl Linnaeus wrote, "I saw the infinite, all-knowing and all-powerful God from behind as He went away and I grew dizzy.  I followed His footsteps over nature's fields and saw everywhere an eternal wisdom and power, an inscrutable perfection".  Nature is God's handwork.  I can understand what Linnaeus wrote when I stand in nature's beauty and wonder, even in the midst of human works and human-made habitats. 
     Nature's abundance and variety overwhelms me in my home area- heavily populated southeastern Pennsylvania.  Much of the wild plants and animals here had to adapt to human activities and human-made habitats, and still are.  New niches will always be developing here and throughout this rapidly changing Earth because of human activities.  And new forms of life will eventually fill each one of those niches, as has been happening with life throughout this planet's existence.  As time proceeds, nature will be forever evolving to fit into changing conditions.  It will never remain constant: Nor should it.  Stagnation leads to extinction.  Life must change to fit into changing conditions, even human-made ones.  Adapting is a key to success.
     My advice to anyone wanting to enjoy the beauties and intrigues of nature is to get outside almost anywhere you are to experience nature there, on a near daily basis, if possible.  Nature at home is as interesting as anywhere in the universe.