I live in a pretty carefully maintained condo complex, so I can see pleasant green things often. My building backs up to one of the drainage routes that handles runoff through the city. It's basically a very wide ditch full of trees and bushes. It has quite a wildlife populations: deer, skunks, and owls. Unfortunately, coyotes use it as a path through the city, which makes a serious threat to unleashed pets.

As for an actual park, there isn't one close by. Oh, well.

We've been really lucky in that although we are within the limits of the city of Santa Cruz we are in a thickly forested area along one of the larger creeks that comes down out of the Santa Cruz mountains. The creek is a city greenbelt and a California and Federal protected habitat for salmon and steelhead (which we have never seen.) So when we look out of our windows all we see are trees and yet more trees. Except for a couple of windows that look towards our neighbors we can not see any buildings. Unfortunately we are near the interchange of California Highways 1 and 17, so we get what is, to me, too much highway noise - I am one who likes to hear nothing but the wind in the trees and the birds.

The neighbors are warming up to a plan I have to convert the city greenbelt into a forest park, mostly wild. Of course it would be open to everyone, but because of the topology there is really no way for any but residents to get to it.

(We also own about 41 acres of sugar maple forest in New Hampshire. We had planned to build on the site, but never did. Our never-used building site does have the best view in the country - across the Connecticut River valley, over Woodstock Vermont, and to the Green Mountains of Vermont.)

@((( David "Kahomono" Frier ))) he did. And a not so well known spot in a small town in Ohio.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tappan_S…

park in Ohio, United States of America

^{Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)}

So sorry about the puppy. That's an upside of buying from a breeder, you know they have a safe place to go back to if it doesn't work out. I remember when our current old-guy hound dog was a puppy, I was losing my mind too and was tempted to send him back (rescue would not have been amused). That's when I decided that future 4-legged family members would be adults!

There are nominally parks here, but many are unsafe and we haven't been here long enough to know offhand which those are. Anywho we have a pretty decent backyard that abuts a wooded property on the side we can see from the back porch, and it's way less peopley than a park. And of course we have that ocean a few minutes away. Now if I could just get Mr. Stranger built up enough to visit it...

For a hot minute in Maryland I lived in Columbia, which has a trail system running through it. I used the section right near my landlady's house, which was heavily traveled, but didn't venture beyond there. The more isolated sections of the trail had crime problems.

a “river” (which isn’t really a river at all)

🤨

We also own about 41 acres of sugar maple forest in New Hampshire.

three words: maple syrup tariffs

you know what to do 😁

I've not had a chance to explore NYC's Central Park, but I have spent a fair amount of time wandering in large gardens in England.

I dislike formal gardens - Versailles left me flat with the saving grace of the more natural parts. I am very fond of the details of Japanese gardens.

I prefer gardens with areas - pass through a hedge or gate and, voila! its something different. Color and scent (and sometimes sound) make up some of the dimensions of that division into areas. I want to be able to go out there and see a rabbit with a pocket watch running while saying "I'm late! I'm late!"

In my own garden effort I am trying to similarly create areas - the front of our house is warmer and drier and I am making it a scented garden with citrus, sage/salvia, mint, gardenia, jasmine, heliotrope, lavender, etc. The back, a much larger, cooler, damper area is being turned into several regions and uses. I am using taller plants to create visual focus and division. I'm also doing tree pruning to create visual corridors towards different parts of our ever-running creek. And I am building looping pathways, in coordination with our neighbors, to provide walking paths through all of this space. I figure this will take me at least twenty years to complete. (There is really no limit - I've got potentially up to 20 acres to work with with more than a quarter mile of creek frontage - I will never live long enough to deal with all of that.)

I am now starting to buy things like mulch (redwood sawdust with ammonium nitrate) and chopped bark (for the paths) by the truckload - I figure I will use six cubic yards of each of those over the next couple of months. Plus a few more cubic yards for my neighbors. (I will have to hire people to haul much of that stuff down our hill - 61 steps down, ugh.)

There are a lot of nano-climates involved and a lot of gophers, moles, deer, banana slugs, and other critters, there is a lot of experimentation to figure out what can survive and where (not to mention that I use a lot of wire gopher baskets.)

I'm giving theme names to various parts - so far I have "Toad Hall" (with Ratty, Badger, and Mole as well), "Mirkwood", "Dunsinane", "Hundred Acre Wood", and "Forest of Arden".

(not to mention that I use a lot of wire gopher baskets.)

Ah, California. If earthquakes, floods and fire don't get us, the gophers will.

Hurstbridge was almost all park! Running parallel to Main Street was a long park that continued to two other suburbs. If you measured our property horizontally from the street to the back fence, it wasn't that amazingly big. HOWEVER, it was also on a steep hill. So, we had a lot of property only good for supporting native plants and animals. Not too bad, but it did mean we had to hire gardeners.

We live in a much smaller place now with just a tiny amount of garden, but it's an easy walk to parks and farmland. We also have gorgeous views of mountains nearby.

Today, I didn't want to cook.

My kid decided they wanted some fast food from a US Midwestern fast-food franchise. They ordered online for in-store pickup.

The person who gave me the bag presented as a special needs individual. They gave a suitable statement then bowed as they presented the bag. I bowed back, gave them a heartfelt, loving smile and a big thanks.

To hell with fascist bully eugenicists like Robert F. Kennedy. I know what hunger feels like and what a privilege it is to be able to order fast food. I suspect the person who presented my kid's meal knows it too. Unlike Kennedy, they're actually contributing to society.

Ah, I remember when rope was invented! Ishmael had some sheep and his mother, Hagar, figured how to turn the wool into thread. Sarah got interested and discovered that she could take multiple threads and create string. Her son, Israel, ran back and forth with a bunch of strings, twisting as he ran, and created rope. (Jezebel handed a bunch of rope to her husband Ahab who, in turn used it to go whaling.

And that is the true and accurate story of how rope was invented - I was there. Oops, did I just also say that I am older than rope?

it’s technically an estuary

pshew... I was waiting for the mic drop to be pollution or sewage or something 😬

US Midwestern fast-food franchise

would that possibly be a place with good custard? I gave them some of my money this week as well

I'm not kidding about gophers.
I've had to wrap the bottom of my planter boxes with hardware cloth to keep the buggers out. I had tried so-called "gopher wire" i the past, but the little buggers chewed their way through it. Those teeth! They wear them down but they grow back at an astounding rate!

And I wrapped the outside of the planter with 6" or around 15cm folded up along the bottom because when I mistakenly installed it on the inside, one of the bastards forced its way between the hardware cloth and the wood in spite of the regularly spaced fencing nails.

@Carsten Raddatz - Here around Santa Cruz we have many California State parks - ranging from big ones like Big Basin Redwoods to little ones, like Seacliff Beach. Two of our favorites are Ano Nuevo and Henry Cowell Redwoods.

These have a pay-to-enter system, but we simply buy the yearly pass.

There is also a fee for the Santa Cruz city wharf into the bay, but we by the "locals' pass" to get a much reduced rate.

The US National Parks also have an entrance fee (and for some parks, like Yosemite there is a reservation system, which is really a nuisance for me because I often use a route through the park that bypasses the crowded parts to get to the Eastern Sierra area.) For a while the gov't offered a pay-one-time lifetime pass, which I bought. They no longer offer that, but I already have mine.

And for going backpacking there are wilderness permit fees.

BTW, we should be heading up towards Redwood National Park/Prairie Creek State park in the next couple of weeks and Yosemite a bit after that and perhaps Death Valley. (People often think of the desert as a bad place, but it's actually quite nice.)

@Rod Mesa - Wow, I've not seen a gopher chew through gopher wire baskets. There's a company here that makes the stuff specially for anti-gopher use, so perhaps they are doing a slightly stronger version.

(On the larger gopher baskets they intentionally do a bad job of galvanizing the wire so that it will rust away after about 5 years. This is for big plants that will outgrow the basket constraints and, when they get that big, be relatively immune to gophers.)

@Carsten Raddatz Parks Victoria (state run parks) require a fee for entry, city parks do not. We have community parks in mos t(all?) suburbs. Not all of them allow dogs, but usually there is a dog park section.

If you go up to the Dandenong mountain ranges, we have a number of private gardens you can enjoy once you have paid the fee. Most memorable is Billy Ricketts Sanctuary where an artist bought the land, and started carving stumps into figures of local indigenous people. It's something of a hike to see all the art he left behind in those woods.

Since the city depends on tourists spending money making ticket purchase compulsory was discussed many time over but never politically enforced since that would cost your seat in parliament from angry locals’ reaction.

@Carsten Raddatz we had a similar situation here with beach parking. They had a nominal daily fee, which was typically paid by tourists, and an annual pass at a higher rate, which was more attractive to locals. Last session, they jacked up the fee for tourists (to $30 a day or some such) to cover making it free for locals. It's based on your car's license plate. They confirm residency and current registration when you sign up for the freebie, then you have to renew every year and they check again each time. Not sure how they'd do that with a city park? But it is possible to have different tiers for locals and visitors.

the little buggers chewed their way through it. ... one of the bastards forced its way between the hardware cloth and the wood in spite of the regularly spaced fencing nails.

damn man, wtf kind of catnip are you growing there?!

@Karl Auerbach. IIRC it has to do with the Zinc coating, which can leach into the soil. Plants need it, but too much uptake can lead to toxicity in some vegetables.

damn man, wtf kind of catnip are you growing there?!

The big bushy kind with 5 leaves.