Common Nature things -for all places where you lived

[shootingstar]

What things from Nature do you tend to compare and have the fondest memories for living in different parts of your region or country (ies)?

Would it be how you experienced (and enjoyed) a particular season, certain types of plants, animals, topography?

Now that I've lived in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta...the common Nature thing that I compare and enjoy for all those different regions ..would be the early-mid autumn season.

I wish I could compare spring flowers or similiar, but so far have had a tougher time being inspired by the flowers that I see here in Calgary unless I go into the Rockies...which is not where I live at this time. I'm down in the flat prairie area.

[goldfinch]

Until I retired I lived most of my life on the edge of Lake Superior. It is a cold and daunting body of water. My memories and both fond and frightening. My husband sailed ore carriers on the Great lakes, and was on a boat following the Edmund Fitzgerald when it went down. November was not a good time to be out on the lakes.

In my working years I would watch storms out my office window, seeing the waves break over the piers of the ship canal. I lived very close to the lake and one winter the lake effect snow dump caused our garage to collapse.

And the ice is blue:



I miss the big lake.

[jyyanks]

I love seeing blue hydrangeas. I live in the East Coast and vacation often in Cape Cod. When I see the classic new england homes with the blue hydrangeas out in front, I feel like I'm on vacation. I tried to grow blue hydrangeas in my front yard but they turned pink!

[Tokie]

You need to give hydrangeas something special to make the blooms blue - ask at the nursery! It is common, I just don't recall what it is. Tokie

[Koronin]

For hydrangeas it has something to do with the ph lvl in the soil if I remember right because we do get them to bloom in a blueish color.

To the original question. I grew up in Ohio and I have fond memories of spending a lot of time at Lake Erie growing up. We had a cabin at the lake in the gated cabin community with a private beach (Astabula area of Ohio). I know live in North Carolina. The past 10 years was in the Charlotte area and now I live at the coast. There is so much I can contrast, but not much I can compare. So many of the plants are different (really only the annual flowers and some of the large trees are the same), the weather is so very different. In Ohio I remember 4-5 months out of the year with snow on the ground, where in Charlotte we got 1-2 snow falls a year and the snow wouldn't last more than a day. Here at the coast if it snows everything totally shuts down. Ohio has 4 seasons of a real length, whereas here we have summer and winter with very little fall or spring. There are some things I prefer about the north and other things I prefer about the south. I must say I am so thankful that Sugar Maples will grow in the south, as they have always been my favorite shade tree. I bought one to Charlotte and it was doing very well when we moved. I'll be getting another one next spring to plant here from my parents. Although it does grow in NC it's not nearly as common of a tree here as it is up north.

[NbyNW]

I'm a southwestern PA girl ... so for me it's trees, and the presence or lack of hills.

Been living on the west coast for some years now, and it's a different mix of trees.

Every place has its own unique, beautiful features. It's how I know where I am.

[spokewench]

You need to give hydrangeas something special to make the blooms blue - ask at the nursery! It is common, I just don't recall what it is. Tokie

I think you need to add an acid for the blue color, if they don't bloom that color in your soil. It is ph level that causes the color

[sfa]

I've pretty much lived most of my life along the east coast--Baltimore, DC, and North Carolina. What I notice from one place to the next is trees and hills. All of the locations where I've lived have been in the piedmont or along the fall line, and I really notice the difference in the types of trees and the relative flatness of the landscape when I head towards the coast. And I always found visiting my midwestern relatives disorienting--all that wide open flat space just feels wrong to me.

When I was in college I took a photography course and it happened that I was out in Illinois for a funeral that semester, so I took some pictures of the farms and fields there. I enlarged one photo for my class and my professor really panned it--hated the composition and how featureless it was. My mother adored it and had it framed because it captured her home landscape (which she misses a lot) so well.

And one final thought--I never realized how wonderful spring could be until I lived in North Carolina. Growing up in Maryland, spring was generally chilly and wet. Beautiful blossoming trees and flowers, but you wouldn't want to hang around outside admiring them too much, and spring came and went in about two weeks here. In North Carolina spring started in February and hung around until May and it was glorious. If I were independently wealthy, I'd spend my springs in North Carolina, my autumns in Maryland, and my summers and winters in the mountains somewhere.

Sarah

[MomOnBike]

I grew up in south-central Colorado, then moved to Nebraska for economic reasons. There are so many things I miss about Colorado that we just don't have here.

The smell of roasting chilies about this time of year - and then buying several bushels of them for green chili all winter.

Magpies. I know, they are not appreciated by my ranching family, but the are iconic to the region.

The sky. There are just so many *%$^*!! trees around here I can't see the sky.

Stars. See above.

Cactus blooms in July.

Crisp - no make that brittle - cold mornings in January, and making jokes about living in the banana belt when it only got down to -25 at our house.

Sigh. I'm homesick.

[Miranda]

Until I retired I lived most of my life on the edge of Lake Superior. It is a cold and daunting body of water. My memories and both fond and frightening. My husband sailed ore carriers on the Great lakes, and was on a boat following the Edmund Fitzgerald when it went down. November was not a good time to be out on the lakes.

In my working years I would watch storms out my office window, seeing the waves break over the piers of the ship canal. I lived very close to the lake and one winter the lake effect snow dump caused our garage to collapse.

And the ice is blue:



I miss the big lake.

Oh my goodness... I never would have imagined the ice being blue! It's beautiful in it's own way. I love nature. Assume the blue color maybe has something to do with the fact that it's a concentration of salt water. Great pic, thanks for sharing!

[limewave]

Oh my goodness... I never would have imagined the ice being blue! It's beautiful in it's own way. I love nature. Assume the blue color maybe has something to do with the fact that it's a concentration of salt water. Great pic, thanks for sharing!

It's a Great Lake so it is "saltless". Just good ole fresh water :-) I've grown up on the lakeshore of Lake Michigan and I just can't imagine living away from the water, it's too much a part of me.

[goldfinch]

Oh my goodness... I never would have imagined the ice being blue! It's beautiful in it's own way. I love nature. Assume the blue color maybe has something to do with the fact that it's a concentration of salt water. Great pic, thanks for sharing!

It is blue because of the way the light refracts in the ice. Ice collisions and pressure from ice built up can increase the effect.

[Chile Pepper]

I really don't miss much about California (grew up there). Well, the restaurants and options for road riding, but those aren't exactly natural. I lived in Wisconsin for two years, and I do occasionally get nostalgic for the rolling green hills and the summer rain. Here in Chile, I love the way the Andes are always towering over me. I love the rivers and lakes of the south. I love the desserts of the north. I love the adobe (oops--not nature again). I love having the beach just an hour and a half in one direction and a ski resort an hour and a half in the other direction. I just really love this place.

[shootingstar]

Here in Chile, I love the way the Andes are always towering over me. I love the rivers and lakes of the south. I love the desserts of the north. I love the adobe (oops--not nature again). I love having the beach just an hour and a half in one direction and a ski resort an hour and a half in the other direction. I just really love this place.

Sounds like some parts of British Columbia --400 kms. inland into British Columbia you are by Canada's desert (where it is a wine-growing region, major), then not far, mountains to ski/snowboard and...well, not as many lakes.

I do like the smell of fall, which is more prevalent in Ontario ....and of course, maple syrup is from the area.

Everything else that's maple syrup in Western Canada (B.C. or Alberta)..is from Ontario or Quebec.

True the prairies give you some fantastic natural views of rolling storms...hail...we've had several which would be not normal in Vancouver, BC. There, a lightning storm makes front page news because it's rare.

[shootingstar]

True that I do notice the trees ...or where I am, the lack of them. However, I live in an area that's alot more trees than other neighbourhoods...which still doesn't compare to the thicker cover, even in the middle of Toronto ,which has a more "lush" greenbelt because of its large swath of ravine parks.

Here, there's a provincial park, protected land within the city...and I can't quite get used it: alot of it is GRASS. It feels wierd to me..like being in a semi-wild..lawn. I am so accustomed to provincial parks as places with a ton of trees/rock.

When I was in VAncouver, I missed the maple trees and other deciduous trees that gave so much autumn colour.
But then B.C., gave back with more lush /bigger trees, flowers, etc....at least along the Pacific coast.

I also notice some differences in birds... I missed seeing the red cardinal, Blue Jay (I realize there are different ones) in southern Ontario.
While along Pacific coast, it's the bald eagle and other similar eagles.

And here, in Alberta..it's the magpie bird with touches of brilliant blue, white and rest black/grey.