Somebody Help Me- I've turned into a Hippie!!!

Somebody Help Me- I've turned into a Hippie!!!

Either that or someone a pirate despises, because today I became a land-lover.

Not in the weird "What in the heck is he doing to that dirt?" kind, or even one that exploits land sales for commissions or capital gains. None of those in fact. I've become a land-lover in the sense of appreciating the land for what it provides- like a farmer, I guess!

I should start from the beginning...

My wife, slash partner, and I began a running routine every morning about a month ago. To be honest, at first it sucked! I was always tired, sore and even grouchy- all day every day. My body eventually adjusted and I discovered how good it made me feel afterward.

But today came the real shocker!!

I was running my usual route from my house in Beaumont, CA, down one side of Oak View Drive, across Oak Valley Parkway, and then back up the trail on the wash-side of the Oak Valley Greens community. I crossed through the park like I usually do. The sprinklers in the park where on, and I noticed bamboo shoots growing in a very unlikely place. It hit me like a sucker-punch...

Land provides. It gives us food, a place to live, a place to play, a place to love and even hate. It gives me the space right now to write this blog. It gives us a place to dine out, to watch football, a place for the football game to happen- you name it and land gives us a place to do it.

But land is so much more than that. It is born by volcano eruptions, and it dies through erosion, it can be down-right beautiful, and hideously ugly (observed and nice dumps lately?).

Land grows through accession naturally, and it rearranges, destroys and creates by form of earthquakes, rivers and oceans. Even the wind can create a land, or take it away.

Please hear me when I say I am not professing my love for Mother Earth (although I do). I am professing my love and gratitude for the land I have, the land under the houses I sell, and the opportunities land gives me economically, socially, for recreation, and for anything else land gives.

I think I will enjoy my daily runs a little more from now on.