Chapters 5&6 (Blog #4)

Chapters 5 and 6 have been my favorite so far in our book.  I think they are filled with lots of good points and arguments for the aesthetics of Nature.  In "The Art of Seeing Things" I really liked  Burrough's example about how his boy can see ducks and he can't because the boy "thinks ducks and dreams ducks" and that no two persons see exactly the same "rays" of the rainbow.  I think depending on what we are attracted to we tend to go in search of it, even in Nature.  I have an attraction to water, and tend to go toward it wherever I am in Nature.  It made me upset when he mentioned that some people have an "eye for four-leaved clovers" because I have gone out searching for them on numerous occasions and have yet to find a single one!  That is so not fair.

I also really liked "A Taste for Country".  I love this quote: "In country, as in people, a plain exterior often conceals hidden riches".  I think there is definitely a connection between land and the life inside it which gives it an aesthetic appeal.  I started thinking about the desert, which on the outside appears to be sublime and abandoned or even "scary".  However, if you really look at it you can see the various life forms.  All the different animals and plants make up the desert too, and together they are beautiful.

Typical things in the desert