Traveling by plane

The concept of “enjoy your flight” —long a staple of flight attendant talk and recordings receded as a reality long ago.  I personally find flying something to be endured, from the noisy airports to crowded seating areas to the confined quarters of the planes themselves, normally completely full.

My noise-cancelling headphones help, as do interesting podcasts and Kindle books, but for an active person, just sitting for hours on end is tiresome.  Short hops are welcome; the flight from Asheville to Charlotte is low, so it was nice to see the mountains as we departed.

I’m always concerned about the view of new construction;  the reality of habitat and farmland loss is way too clear from above.

It would take a lot of planting to make this newly created subdivision even slightly hospitable to wildlife. 

I just recently renewed a domain name I’ve had for awhile called Natural Neighborhoods.  Telling.  Maybe it’s time to resurrect a website for that URL, too, linking to the abundant resources out there to help folks make their landscapes richer in diversity, whether they’re homeowners or renters.  These places look like townhouses the best I can tell (maybe promoting the value of green to developers would be useful, too?). Probably they’ll be going the lawn and foundation planting route, with a token small tree in front.  We’ll see.

Traveling to a beautiful green country (Ireland), I’m also mindful that they only have 10% of their original tree cover of 500+ years ago.  It’s a lovely pastoral landscape, nevertheless.