{"id":41,"date":"2007-07-21T07:19:09","date_gmt":"2007-07-21T14:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromthefrontporch.com\/WPBlog\/?p=41"},"modified":"2023-09-18T12:21:08","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T19:21:08","slug":"midwest-girl-to-city-girl-to-wood-nymph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/2007\/07\/midwest-girl-to-city-girl-to-wood-nymph\/","title":{"rendered":"Midwest girl to city girl to wood nymph"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was born and grew up in Northwest Ohio – Toledo and then Perrysburg.\u00a0 At 24, I took a job that moved me to San Francisco area and then several years later I moved to Los Angeles where I lived for 13 years before my move to Montana in early ’94.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Karl will do a bit of a perimeter check on his own first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening, but he is a homebody dog – staying in the “yard” unless I walk out and then he happily goes with.\u00a0 We are in the habit of a walk down the driveway as soon as there is a bit of light for me.\u00a0 Karl will venture into the woods on the way back, but the trip out is along the driveway.\u00a0 I have a cup of coffee with me and I amble along as he stops to sniff and explore a bit.<\/p>\n

\"Tree\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\"Stump\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0A few days ago I was standing where I took the photos above, absently watching Karl sniff around and looking at the moss covered stump.\u00a0 When I lived in Los Angeles there was always a neighborhood bagel place that I could walk to from my apartment.\u00a0 Standing in the early morning – something about the stump and the trees –\u00a0it brought a vivid picture to mind of the contrast between the surroundings of my current home and how I once lived in the city.\u00a0 In California and particularly Los Angeles, I lived in apartments that were mostly next to other apartment buildings and I had maybe one window that looked at a bit of a tree.\u00a0 I was fortunate to find smaller buildings where I was one of 2 apartments on the floor so had windows on 3 sides usually, but still – it was Los Angeles – the city… sidewalks, cars, buses, small yards immaculately landscaped, office buildings…<\/p>\n

In Montana, even my first house on a 90 x 100 lot in a subdivision – was a treed lot and there were 2 lots next to me with no homes as well as a woods behind that was a buffer between my subdivision and the one next – a huge leap from L.A.\u00a0 The next move took me to a transitional rental on Flathead Lake – on the lake with my own little beach and also woods and orchard around and between the house and the road.\u00a0 Swan River Road was next – a little craftsman house on 6 acres with about 2\/3 in yard\/pasture and 1\/3 in woods – the river across the road and Swan Range rising to the east.\u00a0 The house was surrounded with old growth birch and pines<\/p>\n

Now, here I am in the 8 acre woods and cabin – turned into small ranch house – 175 yards off the road,\u00a0 on top of\u00a0 the first foothill before the Swan\u00a0range, \u00a040 acres of meadow beyond my woods opening onto vistas of the mountains, 40 acres of state land on the north boundary, and a nice neighbor who enjoys quiet and privacy as I do – to my west.\u00a0 The woods is newly thinned and healthy with grasses and wildflowers growing up in between the trees.\u00a0 The sun shines through the trees\u00a0in a beautifully filtered pattern which changes from first light to last.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to explain the thoughts and feelings that flitted through my mind in a manner of seconds – the contrast between the city and this woods.\u00a0 I have lived in the lush midwest, near enough to the ocean to walk to the beach, in a neighborhood, on a lake and now in the woods by the mountains.\u00a0\u00a0 It is the woods by the mountains that I love best.\u00a0 I bought a poster when I was 16 – it was about 2 feet wide and 4 feet high – it was simply sun shining through the trees of a woods – I could nearly duplicate the poster with any photo of my woods…. from the front porch, Saturday, July 21, 2007.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was born and grew up in Northwest Ohio – Toledo and then Perrysburg.\u00a0 At 24, I took a job that moved me to San Francisco area and then several years later I moved to Los Angeles where I lived for 13 years before my move to Montana in early ’94.\u00a0 Karl will do a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-front-porch-musings","category-montana"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22537,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/22537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beardogco.com\/theroadhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}