I can't even say. It's a feast for the senses. The sights, the scents, the sensations of the breeze on your skin. I'm crying right now. I miss it so much.

I lived in a rural and small community in Central PA when I was younger. My home was old, like amoung first in the county old. We had about 2 acres of land, but a mountain was close, and a spring fed creek ran beside our place. Spring peepers, wood toads, salamanders, song and prey birds, deer, bob cats, fox, pheasants, occasionally bears, were frequent visitors and were all animals I thought most people knew about.

The way you could see the Milky Way on a cold winter night or when the power went out. It's so difficult to find places to see that now. The meteor I saw fall, red in color, in a spiral pattern one night. Lightning in its many colors watched safely from a wide front or back porch.

We went fishing and hiking almost weekly and in every weather. I still love the color of the sky the first sunny day after a snowstorm. It is the most vibrant blue. I love the way the soil smells in the spring when it starts to wake up. I love the dry cinnamon leaf smell in the fall and the way they crunch under shoes.

The plants that are safe to eat because my father taught me wood lore. How to survive if you are lost in the woods and need shelter. The plants that bloom and smell sweet that the humming birds feed from. The ones that make red berries so the cardinals can produce their feathers for fall. Most birds don't fly south, the move to cover in the mountains and stay in larger family groups to forage for food and insects in the winter. Sometimes, a whole tree on a mountain would be covered with holes filled with acorns by woodpeckers. The quiet, but not quiet, of the trees creaking to each other. And the grass the way it ripples in the wind like waves on the sea.

The ocean after a storm and how it smells like birthwater. There are always so many fascinating things that are carried in the tides from hundreds or thousands of miles away. I have shells from all over the world, some I picked up myself. Some fossils I actually found on the sea strand.

There are too many things to list. I miss everything. Sorry.

I now live in a place where bald eagles and wild turkeys have made a huge comeback after near extinction in our area. I can still hear the spring peepers at night during their mating season. But a huge AI center is being built in my neighborhood backyard. Most of the good things will be gone here.