Add A Little Splash Of Nature To Your Life
Posted on July 23, 2011
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In the morning or late evenings, I like to commune with nature. Now granted, I’m communing with nature while sitting in a nice chair, on a concrete slab, protected by walls and fences, with an air-conditioned house a few steps away – and maybe a cup of coffee, but I think that’s how a lot of people commune with nature.
You may not think of this as “natural” but we can’t all live in Yosemite or sit on the beach. First, I think we can agree that communing with nature is a solo gig. Too many people ruin the experience. You never see an ad for some beach resort where it looks like a marathon run. Who wants that?
Second, we would quickly ruin the forest or the beach if we all communed with nature in the most beautiful places. I guess these points are generally the same, but if you’ve ever seen an empty campsite after a bunch of kids spent the night, you know what I’m talking about. Nature is pristine!
Instead of searching for the perfect spot to commune with nature, I suggest we take in nature all around us, as we find it, where we find it. A little sky here, a tree there, some dirt, maybe a bird; you know, nature …
You also can “create” a place of harmony and peace with nature. I’ve discovered that it’s much easier to relax with nature, given all the conditions I mentioned, if you are near water. That’s why today’s column is going to cover waterfalls, ponds, and fountains. All of these water features have a couple things in common.
Sound: Unless you have a very weak and full bladder, nothing is as relaxing as the sound of a babbling brook or the roar of a waterfall. Why? I think it’s because it’s the perfect excuse for not listening to people. You can see the mouth moving but all you hear is water. They should install some waterfalls in Washington and Sacramento. That would be a relief from all the current babbling and roaring.
Movement: Water features are also relaxing because there is movement. But it’s a special kind of movement. Watching a ceiling fan or a freeway is movement, but there is no relaxation there. Water is very different … fluid, you might say. Watching water on an endless cycle of movement where individual pieces of water never seem to show up in a pattern, is why water features are relaxing. If you have some fish to watch or feed, that can add to the relaxation for some folks. It doesn’t work for me. Watching fish makes me want to get out my pole and frying pan. Fish don’t seem to relax when I’m around either.
Movement can go hand in hand with lighting. If you can watch the sunlight or have a pond light at night, all the reflections help you relax and … reflect.
Now that we have an idea of what to include in your place of harmony, we can begin to see what will work best for you. Face it, it’s hard to put a waterfall on an average apartment patio, but a fountain can come in all sizes. So, my first point in water features is size. It can also cover the related question, location.
Waterfalls, true waterfalls, tend to be large. The reason for that is that they generally are attached to a “river” or even a “lake,” sometimes even an “ocean.” If you don’t have the space for a roaring waterfall, then you need to consider a pond or a fountain. By the way, if you really wanted a roaring waterfall for the purposes of not listening to people, consider that they probably don’t want to listen to you either. Maybe you can agree to be quiet around your pond or fountain.
Ponds and fountains come in many sizes. The thing to consider, in my opinion, is the “distance to splash ratio” and “volume of water ratio.” Truthfully, I just came up with those ratios. The point is, you need to have enough splashing sound and that’s made by a combination of the distance the water is flowing and the amount of water that is running.
I filled one of my fountains too high. The amount of water was fine but it wasn’t falling far enough to make the proper relaxing sound. I removed more than half the water and now I have perfect splashing ratios. I’m one with nature.
Now, if I can adjust the flat screen, I’ll be in harmony too.
Have a home improvement or real estate question or comment? Send it to Matt Le Vesque at P.O. Box 1527, Highland, CA 92346 or Matt@CZRonline.com., or call him at 800-841-1999, and he will consider it for his column. Please include your full name and city of residence. Le Vesque is a general engineering/building contractor and Realtor in Redlands
Article source: http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_18532639
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