What do you love about the Woods?

Why do you like living or being in the woods?

I find it peaceful like coming home again.

Good question!  The woods is where I feel like I'm in the "real" world.  I always wonder why everyone isn't drawn to being in and living in a forest.  It's a serious mystery to me.

To me, it just... feels like home.

That's easy to answer. It's not the city. I feel alive in the woods. Cities suck the life out of me.

Here's a pic of my daily commute & some free pork. The air is fresh. The water is clean. No noisy neighbors. What's not to like?

I agree with the posts regarding being at home in the woods.  Yet, I have encountered several people frozen with fear when they are in the woods.  I suppose that is why cities exist.

Dappled forest light, shadows of leaves dancing on the ground, the sound of the trees creaking in the wind and leaves rustling in the canopy, the faint distant sound of water finding its way downward, the rich smell that is distinct to forests, and the individual smell that each wood has to itself, the feeling of immersion in nature, being dwarfed by the trees, the sense of old life, the trails of new life hiding in their woodland sanctuaries, the inspiration for my own food forest, the invigorating effects of hiking in the woods, the chance to see a waterfall, the thrill of a rustle in the brush and not knowing if it's just a rabbit or maybe a wild boar, the wild unknown.

Susan, that picture could be my place when it snows.

We don't get a lot of snow here in sunny Texas.

I love the peace and serenity of the woods.

I love hearing the wind rushing through the trees.

I love walking in the woods in the spring to look at all the wildflowers.

Then there is watching all the wildlife.

Woods surround 3 sides of the property that I live on. I have fairly severe seasonal allergies, and one of the biggest nuisance in my yard is fire ants. The woods help with both of those problems. Interestingly, when I'm far enough into the woods, my allergy symptoms disappear. And fire ants don't venture into the woods, so I can stand in one spot for as long as I want without getting bit.

Woods edge three sides of our property too, conifers mainly. Much of our land is a sand bench, and this is where our house, outbuidings, and gardens are located. Part of what we appreciate about the woods is that we get some wind blocking or reduction. There are thick conifer stands to the south and west but, although there's also a stand to the north, the trees to the north are down-slope enough that they don't offer much windbreak.

There's another homestead just uphill beyond the block of woods to the west. But upslope of that, to an elevation of about 6000 ft, is a forested ridge. The proximity of the woods is health promoting — I'd say mainly psychological health. I lived for a few years in Vancouver, BC, which is a city of a couple million with adjacent suburbs. It's a pretty nice city, but living in it sometimes got me down. If I'd been down in my mood for a while, going to the city's Stanley Park (a much treed & kind of semi-wild place) would always magically pick me up. But hiking & camping in truly wild forested places had always held a joy for me. Backpacking like that is available right around my area, on land that's preserved by government decree.

Where we live now has had a European history of silver-lead-zinc mining, railroading, logging & lumbering, and family farming. The farm land was logged off and developed into pastures & fields. Some of the tress on the flatter land were not merchantable species, though some a lot could be sold for saw logs and helped to pay for the land and buildings. Our place was cleared to an extent in the early 1950s, to develop a pretty self-sufficient family homestead. Thankfully, part of the forest was left untouched. I thinned some trees & made firewood from these stands in my early years here, but almost completely stopped doing that in order to maintain the windbreaks and allow wildlife to flourish. Of course, it flourishes so well that we're compelled to curtail some species of the mammal community, to some extent!

Alas, climate change is making our high-elevation forests increasingly susceptible to lightning-strike wildfires. A costly situation for the governments & taxpayers of the western-most Canadian provinces.



Anyhow, I'm a big fan of forests. I'd find it hard to live without at least a remnant forest nearby.

I love how the woods change through each season.

The same physical location can be wildly different depending when it is visited during the year. I'm especially partial to the spring when the first plants start emerging from the ground. I also love the fall when the canopy starts to open up from the leaves falling onto the forest floor.

Susan Boyce wrote:Why do you like living or being in the woods?

I find it peaceful like coming home again.

It is literally coming home. Our ancestors evolved with the woods and savannas, and all the nature and soil within; it's part of our DNA. Spending time in nature increases one's health: it's been proven to increase serotonin, oxytocin, and dopamine levels- the feel good, and mood stabilizing hormones. Most of what ails people in modern times is a disconnect from nature.

The Japanese have take to "Forest-bathing" to reconnect their people that live in cities with the natural world in which we came from. There is some evidence that forest bathing can increase our natural killer cell activity, and potentially provide an anti-cancer benefit, thanks to inhaling cedar mists.

 

First thing coming to my mind is how much cooler it is in a forested area. I've been taking a detour lately from work because we're in the middle of a heat wave. straight through a big forest. The waving leaves hypnotize into calmness and the cool air and shade is like coming home to a luxurious candle bath after the heat struck full sun fields.

I love the smell of a forest. And dappled light. And laying down looking up into the trees. And the soundscape, somewhat muffled, broken up by bird song and bugs buzzing.

The green. The dark. The cool. The sound of the wind as it passes above the trees and they comb the air. The free wood for burning and building. The critters who call it home. The smell of microbes acting on fallen wood and litter. The relative quiet. The limited visual range.

I love everything about the woods. Looking up at tree branches in wonder at their age. The smells of leafmould and fungi. The sounds of open country are muffled in the woods, and footsteps muffled on the leaf covered ground.

It was one thing missing in this area, so we had to plant one.

misty Isle