Nature in your neighborhood: Anna Pfluke

My neighborhood is close to campus and relatively industrial and concrete-filled; a mix of houses with beautiful yards and apartment buildings with large paved parking lots. For me, it is the furthest from nature I have ever lived. I fall asleep to the sounds of traffic on the intersection of Lakeway and Ellis, train whistles blowing, and the chatter of people in surrounding apartments, rather than the whisper of wind through the trees, the chirping of cricket's and frogs, and the sound of crashing waves that I am used to. When I wake up, instead of greeting the earth every morning with my bare feet, I put shoes on and walk over pavement to the bus stop. The suppression of the natural world in this neighborhood in order to accommodate humans is still something I am getting used to, and while in some ways it feels like a severing of the most important and primal connection inside of me, it also ignites a deep appreciation of the resiliency of the earth. Walking over pavement with my shoes on, I see moss and dandelion opening up cracks in this concrete world and reaching towards the sun. I see native Snowberry and Sword Ferns growing in a small undeveloped strip between properties. I see fungi of all sorts growing in people's yards, the frost clinging to grass that sparkles in the early morning sun, and decomposition and regrowth happening all around me. 

 This is a photo of a shrub (I am guessing non-native) growing on the edges of a parking lot near my apartment, in dappled morning sunshine. 

Not near where I live, but because I feel a lack of deep connection to my immediate neighborhood I consider much of the nature around Bellingham to be apart of my neighborhood. 

Yellow flowers growing in the midst of frosted over gravel and dead leaves. 

Moss and Licorice Ferns growing off Big Leaf Maple trees. 

Morning frost covering both the decaying and the living.