What was a slow realization for me.

To sum up Texas, I’d say it’s hot sun and cold winters, parched ground and bare trees.

If New Zealand looks like the Shire, Texas looks like a western TV set.

But there is beauty to be found. That’s something that’s taken me a long time to realize. But it was there all the time… or, if there is an credibility to the old saying that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” then it wasn’t beautiful.

Either way, it is now, and made all the more special because it’s my land (according to that vain concept of having a homeland on earth).

Chances are, your backyard is probably pretty beautiful and pretty special in the same little way, isn’t it?