#also to explain: i now live in california and wildly encounter this perspective on us = suburbia a LOT despite california being geo diverse

[kaurwreck]

sometimes the way the usamerican internet talks about lawns and touching grass reminds me that I grew up in a semirural, unincorporated, recently suburbanized forest without a monoculture lawn and a disproportionately huge backyard that had fruit trees and shrubs, wisteria, kudzu, poison ivy, poison oak, multiple species of clover, multiple varieties of grass, roses, holly, rose bushes, multiple species of venemous snakes, other wild fauna (raccoons, opossums, wild rabbits, snapping turtles, squirrels, birds), azaleas, multiple species of mint, other plants that I never identified, and a mix of pine and hardwood trees (until Hurricane Katrina, this included a massive wisteria girdled around a massive oak that was nearly horizontal (as in, the wisteria had partially uprooted it), non-girdled oak trees, pine trees, and a weeping willow tree). this was within the back and front yards; I'm not counting the neighborhood generally or the actual plotted gardens or the surrounding towns or nearby neighborhoods still in fairly dense forests (the domestic water supply reservoir that's also used for recreation has lots of alligators and there were white tailed deer and bobcats at the edges of my middle school).

anyway. that was growing up. now, I live halfway across the country in a densely populated city that's also biodiverse. idk, it's odd to me how geographically and bio diverse and massive the united states is and how few americans conceptualize it outside of a very specific flavor of suburbia.