As I’m weaving through the chestnut brown brush, I can see that the area is full of life. I see a dark beetle, scuttling through the leaves on the ground. I can also see a brightly colored butterfly floating through the air like a ballet dancer floats on the stage. I also smell the flowers and pollen and burst into a fit of sneezing and coughing due to my unfortunate allergy to pollen. But this doesn’t stop me from loving this place and the sense of oneness with nature that it gives me. This wonderful place is my backyard.

A backyard might not be the first place a person would think of when thinking about nature, but since my backyard is very large, it has many interesting features and areas with many trees and bushes where I can relax. A few years ago, when I was finished with my homework and trying to relax in the trees with a book, I felt something poking my back. I turned around to see what it was and I realized that there was a large squirrel right behind me. At the time I was extremely afraid of squirrels because, for some silly reason, I thought that every squirrel had rabies. So there I was frozen like a block of ice—a very frightened block of ice. After a few moments, strangely enough, my thoughts were that for me to make it out of this situation alive, I had to jump from the tree. So I did. Just in case you were wondering, I am alive. But, I was slightly injured from the fall as the tree was moderately tall. These kinds of interesting things happen regularly in my backyard because of the abundance of animals that live there.

This place is very close to my heart. It is the one place where I can feel one with nature, which is something that I need more these days with the stresses of high school. This is one of the places that has been with me through it all since I moved to Holmdel.