While I was unable to explore the natural world outside of my house, I was still able to discover the world in my backyard. I felt the sun radiating onto my neck as I sat on my wooden porch gazing into the grass. At first, I just mindlessly existed like a rock outside trying to soak up some sun in order to remedy my vitamin D deficiency.

After half an hour, I began my hunt for interesting bugs. I had found a few, but, they were small. And as I attempted to dive into this microscopic world, I futilely took pictures of bugs that were there one instant and gone in another. I instantly remembered my childhood memories of looking for weird bugs under rocks. I’d avoid the worms but pick up my favorite bug — the roly-poly.

Scouring the landscape at this limited, yet infinite, chunk of nature, I decided to rest and look up at the clouds, but there were no fluffy balls of white to be seen from horizon to horizon. Not one speck of white to embellish the sky-blue sky. My eyes could only squint up at the beaming sky for so long before tears started to blur my vision.

Looking back down, I studied the plant-life and examined all the plants my mom had planted in her miniature home-garden. As I crawled across the garden, I found a plant that I had not placed there when I helped renovate the backyard. It was a greenish-blue plant that hard and spiky. It poked my fingers as I cleared some fallen leaves that had nested themselves on it. Finally, I had found the picture I wanted. I immediately went to my laptop to look up this plant. Its name — Juniper.

-Ethan