As you might know, if you’ve followed me for a while, I live pretty far out into the middle of nowhere in the Ozark mountains of Madison county, Arkansas. I love it here! I realize, though, that some people wonder exactly how nature makes me happy.

So I started a list of all the moments of joy I’ve experienced due to nature. As I think or experience others, I’ll add them to this list. If you have any to add, leave a comment so everyone can become more aware of just how easy it is for nature to bring happiness, even if it’s tiny moments.

And it doesn’t matter where I experience them – out in the middle of nowhere, or in a sidewalk crack in the city. The important thing is to stay alert for opportunities to experience the ways that nature makes me happy.

In this way, those moments happen more often. Or maybe it’s just that I recognize them more often. Your brain will become ‘attuned‘ to the things that put a smile on your face once you start recognizing those things. Then the Universe will present that to you more often.

On the flip side, if I focus on the things that make me sad, afraid, despondent, and depressed… well, the Universe has the same way of bringing more of that to my attention. So today, I’m focused on the ways nature makes me happy. Bring on more joy!

The Ways Nature Makes Me Happy

It’s all about the simplicity of these experiences, so they’ll be short & sweet:

1. seeing a chipmunk run across the dirt road with his little tail in the air
2. Listening to the summer tanager
3. Watching fireflies on hot summer nights
4. Seeing the milky way on cold winter nights
5. Smell of plum blossoms in spring
6. Scent of raccoons family by the hollow tree
7. Rocks turned over by bears
8. Animal tracks in the mud
9. Safely relocating rattlesnakes after convincing hubs they didn’t all need to die
10. Mist rising on the river
11. Hawk close enough to see their eyes
12. Cracked rocks on the driveway spilling color
13. Bees, flowers, and veggies in my garden
14. feeling a warm thermal on a cold day
15. rain on a hot summer day
16. Tasting first ripe tomatoes
17. Stopping to eat berries off the bush
18. Otters playing in the creek
19. Beavers swimming in the creek
20. Putting on lip tint I made with local pigment
21. Painting with local pigments
22. Doe bringing new fawn out in view
23. the smell of rain on the way
24. the first snowflakes in early winter
25. the smell of my horses’ necks

Add to my Nature Makes Me Happy list!

Drop a comment and let me know the kinds of things you see, hear, smell, or feel that give you good feelings.