things to be happy about nature

• wondering why trees and rivers have similar shapes
• beaches that are red in the east, honey in the middle, and tawny in the west, sloping gently to the water, backed by bluffs and dunes and cut by bays and harbors
• ice caves
• the snout of a glacier
• touching a cloud
• tender, early morning mists rising from the blue Pacific
• rock walls of every imaginable earth color
• alfalfa's long primary root, up to 50 feet long
• snow in December
• a huge weeping beech tree
• the bottlenose dolphin's built-in smile formed by the curvature of its mouth
• looking up to see mistletoe clinging to bare winter trees
• a rumble of thunder
• seeing a lunar eclipse