Laziness

I'm not sure if it's because of the seasons changing or if it's just me, but the amount of laziness lately seems overwhelming. I see it especially at school, even I'm doing it and I'm usually on top of my work. Maybe it's daylight savings that's throwing things off. It's dark by 6 and the sun is up by around 7. So does that mean our bodies want to take breaks every winter just like the rest of nature does?

I looked into it a little more and found out that some people are affected by the seasons changing, ironically called seasonal affective disorder (Grohol). At first I thought it was a joke because it's abbreviation is SAD, but I found out it's a real thing and surprisingly common. They also said that a big variable in diagnosing people, specifically teens, was what "weather personality type" they are. Meaning people who like summer are more likely to get depressed during the fall or winter, and vice versa. Depression is generally associated with lack of motivation so it makes sense to say people are affected by the weather and losing motivation to do any type of work.

I wish we got to hibernate in the winter, or take cat naps everyday, but we have to stay awake all year. Even though things like SAD get in the way sometimes, we still push through and get things done. Like this blog, it's late but it got done.

Work Cited
Grohol, John M. "Can Weather Affect Your Mood?" PsychCentral. N.p. 28 Aug. 2014. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.

Dave

It's been a year, two months, and a week since I lost my step dad, Dave. The fact that it happened is always lingering in my head. I thought as time passed I'd be able to say his name without my eyes tearing up, but I was wrong. Every time I went out to the garden it was ok because something out there was alive. Now that the garden is fading so is my grip on the subject.

The pictures we drew on my cement wall on the year anniversary is fading; the cucumbers, that seemed to grow no matter their condition, finally gave out; the corn that stood up so proudly and straight, are scrawny and falling over; the cabbage that looked healthy was really rotting on the inside; the tomatoes are still pushing, they're for the most part green, but growing bigger;  the onions are still there, but are being ignored, every time I look out there I see this and think of Dave. The wall holds all the memories; the cucumbers are his effort to fight the disease he had; the corn is his confidence that got lost when things got bad; the cabbage being his body eating himself away; the tomatoes being the disease; the onions being my feelings about the topic.

I knew the garden was going to fade inevitably, and I know every life gives in eventually, but the garden will come back and he won't. Which is one of the most devastating realizations I've had.

I read this poem and it talks about death being literally everywhere. It's all around waiting for its time to take you, to take him. Death was around for years and Dave being who he was flipped him off and went on with his life. Dave didn't care that he had a disease, he lived as much as he could. He never let death get in the way of his life, but eventually death got tired of seeing the finger and took him. Death is unfortunately a part of life, and no matter the day his name will always put a weight on my chest.

Work Cited
Mark R Slaughter. "It's Death Again." Poem Hunter. N.p. 2009. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.

The Little Things

I've slowly realized that my backyard has a completely different feel to it. I knew there'd be an inevitable change because of nature but it's slowly turned into a strange place for me. When I use to look I saw the rare green that's seen in Nevada; the beautiful flourishing garden; the overall calmness in the environment. Now when I go out there I see leaves littering the dying grass and the garden shriveling in on itself. It's not as welcoming as it use to be. 

    First picture I took for observations

    The picture I took yesterday 

I'm trying to take pictures every other day or so to see the change over time and when I look at the first picture compared to the most recent, it doesn't look the same. I found this video on it showing a tree bloom in less than a month (m.youtube.com/watch?v=loHgnJYPYso). It fascinates me how fast nature changes.

There are also videos on YouTube about people taking pictures everyday for a certain amount of days and the change is crazy. Everyday things are changing but they're so little no one ever notices until they look back. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that things just go by without anyone noticing. Not everyone is eager to watch a leaf change a slight shade of green, or a person's face looking a little older than it did the day before. If there's one thing I've gotten from my garden, other than food, it's to slow down and enjoy watching the little things. 

Work Cited

A Tree Blooms in Huntington. Jeffrey Baker. YouTube, 2008. Video.

Improvements

I had a band competition yesterday and my cousin came and bought me flowers and told me, "these flowers will just continue to keep growing as long as you change the water every three days and trim is every once and a while." I said ok and thanked her, but I was wondering how exactly does a flower live forever in a vase?

So I looked them up and found out that they really can live in a vase for quite a while. I thought since they're practically year round flowers, maybe I could plant one in my backyard next to my garden or around it, but I'm kind of nervous to do so. It says I can plant a bulb now and as long as I keep up with it, it should grow(Almanac). The only problem is I've never planted anything before, so I'm a little up in the air about it. Although as long as I do my research and keep up with it it should be fine. 

When I went to Oregon last week I also bought my mom seeds for new flowers in the garden, and they also need to be planted in autumn. So maybe that'll be another day out in the backyard with my family. It'll be nice to sit outside and make improvements for the garden, especially since we haven't done anything as a family out there since August. 

Work Cited

"Lilies." Almanac. Yankee Publishing. n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2014. 

Difference

So I went to Oregon for a college tour last Thursday and Friday and decided I should compare the life of things in Oregon to my backyard. Before I left I thought obviously there's going to be a big difference because of the climate, but what I concluded was unexpected.  

I decided, before I left, that my backyard's pretty green for living in a desert. Yeah, there's a few dry spots, but it can only get so green. I also decided that since Oregon rains so much, that there would be a lot less dry spots. So I'd take that into consideration when comparing. 

When I got to Portland I was surprised to see that there wasn't an overwhelming amount of green. I guess while I was stereotyping the environment I forgot to take society into consideration. Once we got past the airport we went to go see our first college, Portland State University. I was also surprised to see that it was as green as the college here in Nevada (University of Nevada, Reno). The next two colleges were basically the same thing. 

So when I came back I was surprised and proud to say my garden is as green as colleges in Oregon.

 

Western Oregon University, taken Friday October 10th by Monica Venegas. 

Appreciation

Over the past week, since the garden's dying so much, my mom has been pulling a lot of the plants and throwing them away. It surprises me how one can just pull life out of the ground and toss it. I had mentioned to my teacher that I was observing my garden, and she had told me, "We should feed the homeless with our gardens." After hearing that and seeing my mom just toss everything that didn't get eaten, it made me feel so wasteful. 

I think us as humans are ridiculously wasteful, and I know it's cliché to say that, but just imagine what we could do with all the stuff we're just throwing away. I'm not saying we need to send all our food to Africa or anything, but that stuff can help here, especially in Reno (basically the city next to sparks that holds the majority of our homeless). 

People nowadays are ridiculously picky and spoiled in my eyes. If someone doesn't think they have enough anything on their burger, they bring it back and demand something better. I can't imagine a homeless person finally getting money for food and then taking it back saying it's not good enough. I think if we had a little more appreciation for the little things that we do get, life would be a little bit better. 

This picture is of one of the cabbages that grew in my backyard. We never ate them and when we finally picked them they had green worms and eggs in them (if you look at the picture it's the green dot looking things in the center). 

Significance

The reason I chose my backyard for this project wasn't because I thought it'd be easy, it's because my backyard has slowly become a safe place for me. It started to become a safe place a couple weeks after we moved in, but the official day I noticed was August 26th, 2014. That was the year anniversary of my step-dad dying and honestly, because of my backyard, that day went a lot better than expected.

Even though I live in a dry desert where nature is of no importance to most people, my backyard is green and plentiful. My entire life I've always loved nature, but the most we get here in sparks is grass, trees, and plenty of dirt. One of my favorite things about nature is how plants die and come back to life over the seasons. Which makes this observation so much easier to enjoy. Since we're starting around fall I get to watch life slowly fade from all the plants in my backyard.

I'm taking pictures every other day or so and I'm taking them in specific spots everyday. That way the change over time will be obvious. This picture is going to be my favorite though, out of all the sections that I chose I think this one will look the best as time passes.

September 14th, 2014

 By doing this, I think I'm going to gain a whole new respect for nature in general. Probably appreciate my backyard even more than I already do.