Broad Ripple Random Ripplings

Brought to you by:

Everything Broad Ripple Home

Random Ripplings Home

2021 09 02

Column

Right in my Own Backyard - My Backyard - by Brandt Carter

posted: Sept. 02, 2021

My Backyard

I have been writing this column for more than a year now. It has been a pleasure to share musings about my backyard, for my backyard means so many different things at different times:

• It is a refuge when the walls of my home get too close.

• It is a retreat when asked by circumstances to conserve gas and not drive so much.

• It is a spot for a tree house where I can go up and read a paper or take a nap.

• It is my outdoor laboratory where I can be a citizen scientist and observe birds at my feeder.

• It was the playground for my son's many adventures and now for his children.

• It is a connection to nature where I can commune with the earth.

• It is labor of love when I complete the growing season where I have mowed, planted and raked.

• It is a friend for which I know all the topography of its personality.

• It is a place of surprises when I see wonders like a hawk, a family of screech owls, a lost deer, or a fairy ring.

• It is a possession, but one I realize is only mine until the next caretaker owns it.

• It is a place where I see seasons arrive year around.

• It is the eternal resting place of my beloved pets.

• It is home to the urban wildlife I have cultivated.

• It is a place where stories are born - stories of the plants and herbs I tell to neighborhood children.

• It is my dogs' daytime home.

• It is connection to my neighbors' yards and the outside world.

If you would like to share a sentence about what your backyard means to you, please e-mail me. I will share this with our readers in the future.

Brandt Carter, artist, herbalist, and naturalist, owns Backyard Birds at 2374 E. 54th Street. Visit her web site www.feedbackyardbirds.com. Email your bird questions to Brandt@BroadRippleGazette.com

brandt@broadripplegazette.com

Brought to you by:

Brought to you by: