Welcome!

[melannen]

Welcome to common_nature!

I am one of your glorious moderators, melannen. Your other glorious moderator is elke_tanzer. We made this community because we wanted a place on Dreamwidth to talk about nature, and we hope other people will find it a nice place to stay, too.

What sort of posts are welcome here? Well, I'm planning to start a series of posts about identifying the weeds and shrubs that are flowering in lawns and roadsides in my area. I'll also probably post book reviews and poems and photographs. elke_tanzer has wonderful posts coming up, too. Ask questions, mention something you saw outside today or something you saw in the press; icon posts, fiction with a focus on nature, how-tos, art - all is good! We're all about celebrating the fact that nature is everywhere and anyone can be a naturalist, no matter who they are or where they live.

In the meantime, let's do introductions! If you'd like, tell us a little bit about how you relate to nature and what you'd like to see this community become. And tell us something about what sort of nature you see around you - where do you look when you want to commune with nature? What climate zone or Biome do you live in? I'll start in the comments.

Comments

[melannen]

I have a degree in geography, which gives me a solid background in ecology, geology, and climatology, but I really mostly just like going outside, and learning the whats and whys of what I see around me - I never really got past the toddler stage of collecting rocks and asking what that flower is. I'm also particularly interested in the plants that grow around human-occupied areas, and the uses people have put them to, and the stories people have told about them.

And I live on the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain in North America, which is climate zone Cfa (warm temperate, humid, hot summers) and temperate broadleaf forest.

[fay_e]

This is a lovely idea for a community. I have only a few years of biology to my name, but I always make an effort to spot plants that I am familiar with anywhere I go. Unfortunately I live in a city area so the kind of plants I see on a daily basis tend to be on the smaller side or planted by city planners.

I'd love to know what other types of nature there are in other parts of the world, and get a little help on the plants in my area, if possible. I'm in the equatorial, fully humid region of Asia (Af) and tropical rainforest.

[melannen]

I am terribly interested in the sort of small plants that grow between the cracks in cities, so hopefully we can all teach each other about them! Even though the climate's not really the same in our areas, the weed plants that grow in people-habitat are sometimes the same plants everywhere that people are. (Which some people think is a depressing sign of loss of biodiversity - which is is - but I find something hopeful and heartwarming about it too. People-habitat is a ecological niche, too.)

I'm really hoping we get people posting from all different parts of the world! The wider the better.

[mllesays]

I just recently saw a puppet show about the rainforest (I work at a puppet theatre, it's pretty cool), and because of it I learned that the Asian rainforests have flying snakes. And that is the most terrifying thing I could imagine. ;)

[fay_e]

Wow! That is really pretty cool. Does your theatre specialise in certain types of puppets or do you guys try your hand at everything? =)

Sadly flying snakes are probably only found in the zoo here - jumping snakes and flying squirrels are more likely to be found in whatever natural habitat that's left. I like snakes but I prefer flying squirrels myself.

[mllesays]

We do everything! This particular show was a combination of hand, rod, and body puppets, done in a style called checkblack (the puppeteers stand behind a curtain of light, wearing all black, so you see the puppet and not the person behind it). The website is here, if you want to see more about it.

The show mentioned flying squirrels as well! I'm with you, I'd much prefer squirrels to snakes.

[briarwood]

Great idea for a community!

I live in Wales, UK which is climate zone Cfb (warm temperate, fully humid, warm summer)...although after last year I'd argue that last bit!

I'm all about the weather *pause for the inevitable Brit jokes*

No, really, I am. I'm not an expert or anything, I just love to observe the way the weather changes throughout the year, and what that does to the landscape around me. Alongside that, I watch the sun and moon. This morning, for instance, on my way to work the sun was shining right in my eyes and it was a bright "Barbie" pink. Tomorrow, even if the weather is the same, it could be a completely different view.

[melannen]

Ooh, a weather person! Yay! I am terribly interested in the weather, the atmosphere, and light, but I tend to be so busy looking down at what's growing at my feet that I forget to look up unless I'm reminded. So I would love to see weather and sky stuff show up here.

[mllesays]

I know pretty much nothing about nature, except that I love it. I don't get out into it often enough, but maybe this comm will help change that!

I grew up on an island, a block from the ocean, and spent my whole childhood watching tiny crabs run around and hide in their tiny crab holes. Now I live in the Piedmont region of the United States, just about 50 miles from the edge of the Blue Ridge region. And somehow, I still don't get up to the mountains enough.

[melannen]

For all I love nature, I will go days at a time without leaving the house. (There's a reason I added "The Daystar" to the community's interests!)

I grew up (and still live) on the Atlantic Coastal Plain, about ninety minutes' drive from both the sea and the mountains, and somehow I still never manage to get to either of them often enough. I envy you growing up that close to the water, though: we get to the beach just often enough for me to miss it terribly without ever going enough for me to really *learn* it.

[mllesays]

Growing up that close to the water, it's so weird. It becomes this living presence that you're used to always having with you. I miss the ocean more than I miss some people in my life!

I also count myself lucky, though, because Northeastern Florida has such rich plant life to go along with the ocean. Our house had live oaks! A block from the beach! IDK, I've been to other beaches and it just hasn't been the same. (My icon is a perfect representation of what it looked like in my hometown.)

Now I think my ideal place to live would be the SF/Santa Cruz area, because it has this awesome mix of the beach and the mountains, all within minutes of each other.

[loligo]

Hello, all! I live in the woods, on a small lake, about five minutes outside of a small college town in the Midwestern USA. I've always been fascinated by plants and animals of all types. My husband is a zoologist, and our daughter is also pretty much nature-obsessed. (Actual quote from her, age 3: "I don't like human beings -- only wild animals.") And then somehow we ended up with a son who is all about the machines, instead!

I post about the nature around me pretty often. That's what the "wildlife" tag on my journal is supposed to be for, although it also ended up documenting the all-too-extensive story of me trying (and mostly failing) to find homes for the family of feral cats who were living in our neighborhood (and are now living in my house).

[melannen]

I am so jealous of the lake and the woods (and the small college town. And the zoologist. :D )

Although I fully support the idea that basic physics and optics - especially as easily observable in the world around you - count as nature, so we may be posting some stuff here later that your son would like too.

Hallo hallo!

[elke_tanzer]

I live in Burbank, California, in Los Angeles County, which has entirely too much pavement for my tastes, but I can get to the local public gardens, the nearby-mountains and the beaches fairly easily, and the desert and the higher-mountains with only a little effort.

:-D

Re: Hallo hallo!

[melannen]

I wish I had public gardens closer! There's some amazing ones in the cities nearby (I've been dreaming of a day in the national water gardens for years) that I keep meaning to get back to but whenever I go into the cities it seems like there's always something else happening.

[weaverbird]

What a great idea for a comm!

I live in the Berkshires of Southern New England, which is climate zone Dfb (snow, full humid, warm summers) and part of the Northeastern Coastal Forest. I grew up on a small farm and live now on the outer edge of exurbia.

All my life I've been interested in Nature - weather, plants and animals - and in the turning of the seasons; a very informal but rewarding kind of phenology, in other words.

[melannen]

Berkshires! I am jealous.

And I love the idea of phenology, formal or otherwise. It's so easy to not notice in a lot of places people live these days, and it's such a terrible thing to miss.

[weaverbird]

Phenology is good stuff, and addictive. Have you seen Project Budburst? They make it easy to track the cycle of plants online - and not just out in the country!

Also, there is software, available as shareware or purchased, from Life Cycles, for tracking stuff on your own computer.

(and now I have some catching up reading to do; I introduced myself but neglected to join or subscribe *facepalm* and so have missed everyone's posts for days. Hee! Such an airhead.)

[copracat]

I have none of the earthly arts to my name, but I like being in the world and I find it fascinating. I live in a city, in a Cfa zone (warm temperate, fully humid, warm summer).

Today I was sitting in a friend's tiny, tiny back courtyard. In this tiny courtyard she has four trees. Three are, I believe, Young's Weeping Birches and one with small dark green leaves, glossy on the top side and matt on the underside. It's a common garden tree where I live, but I'm not sure of the name. It was lovely to sit under the trees and listen to them move in the breeze.

[melannen]

Earthly arts not necessary. :D

(Seriously - so much of what I know has come from just hacking away at my stack of field guides until I halfway know what I'm doing. I support other people not having to do that.)

And ooh, weeping birches in the wind. I have a thing for weeping trees of all kinds; they're just so - sensual.

[queenbarwench]

I live in Newcastle, in north-east England, so it's the same climate zone as briarwood above (Cfb: warm temperate, fully humid, warm summer).

I'm 10 miles from the North Sea (cold even in summer) and maybe 40 miles from the top end of the Pennines, the line of hills (of which some are technically mountains) that runs down the centre of the country, so I have huge diversity right on my doorstep.

In my own garden I mostly have weeds, but we also get a lot of birds. I have this grand (and currently, entirely theoretical) plan about remodelling my garden so it's both easy-care and wildlife-friendly.

The icon is somewhat misleading, as it's actually been rather nice this weekend.

[melannen]

There is nothing wrong with a garden full of weeds! In fact I support your dream garden in all ways. (I have a dream of a witchy garden that's all plants that look, and grow, like weeds but bloom really pretty and have interesting uses, but I will never have the gardener's discipline to actually achieve it.)

Your icon may not be appropriate for *your* weekend weather, but you can claim you're using it honor of us on the other side of the Atlantic. :D (Flooding. Flooding *everywhere*.)