Qualifications on Nature Loving

(Editor's note: I may be mixing two nature stories together here. But hey, it makes for a better story.)

As the weather turns warmer, more and more of America is pouring out of doors to enjoy the sunshine. I happily joined them, recently, taking my blanket in one hand, my books and notebooks in the other, and traipsing out to the lawn to do lesson plans in the presence of Nature. I sat down and began to work.

Hm. I kept having to switch positions. The ground was really quite hard. No sofa cushions in the grass here. And no back of the easy chair to lean against either. I had to hold myself up, and try to keep my legs from falling asleep. Wheeee. Nature.

And I seemed to have plunked myself down right in one of those ant paths. I had to keep flicking the things off of me. And sometimes they would crawl in between my toes and suddenly feel intimidated and randomly bite me. Grrrr.

And THEN I looked down and saw that my book was covered in tiny little reddish brown bugs that hopped when you touched them. I quickly realized that if they were covering my book, they could be covering everything else in sight, too. That would include me. Ahhhhhh! I sprang to my feet and forsook nature. Enough was enough!

Nature is full of bugs and hardness and crawly things (oh, I forgot to mention the spider that was on me!) and sun in the eyes and probably many more gross and annoying things that I didn't even detect. Blah on nature.

However, the call of the sunshine is a strong one. So I got a rocking chair from the porch and carried it out in the grass to a place I could put my feet up on a convenient rock. I will enjoy nature on my own terms (a. comfort, b. no wildlife near my person), thank you very much.

Sigh. Thoreau would never have approved of me.