Axa brought up the idea: “I always thought it’d be cool if we all took a picture of what the sky looked like outside our respective windows/houses (no scenery for the most part) but I think it’s be too much work for the GAPAs. And maybe boring? I dunno, I like stuff like that.”
Later in the conversation she added, “It sounds like windows are the window to the soul then, huh? haha. It’s definitely interesting to see things that are commonplace for someone else, how they perceive things.”
Why don’t we try it with verbal descriptions? You could even describe what you’d like to see. (But tell us about your real-world view first.)
My window looks out over our very brief yard. Across the street there is a very large dark blue vehive parked in front of the neighbors’ brown shingle house. Beyond that I can look down and see the warehouses and actual houses by the river, and beyond that I can see the river (there’s an extremely large container ship in it at the moment, and the far side of the river. All of this is dusted very lightly with snow.
I just realized that every wall in my house has a window on it…weird.
Anyway, the windows from my sunroom look out onto the street, which our house is at the end of. There are fauna and flora everywhere you look. Sunlight always breaks across from these windows, and it looks beautiful when you come out of the driveway. All of the houses along the street are tall and brown brick, like mine, and have snow on their rooftops. A melting snowman sits under the trees in my front yard.
I went to the exhibit called “Windows on the World” at the Trade Towers back when I was REALLY young. There was a big fake tree inside.
Window views, huh? ok……
At home:
My bedroom window faces out onto our back yard, which has been mostly overgrown by moss, with very little actual grass remaining. Beyond the edge of the yard the ground slopes up, not particularly steep, but a decent hill all the same; at the edge of our mossy yard, the vegetation changes almost immediately to thick weeds, semi-dense brush, interspersed with a fair number of slender diamond willows as well as larger, sturdier birch trees, as well as several dark green spruce trees reaching way up into the sky. In the summer, the foliage is dense enough that I can not see through this wild stretch of land, about the width of a typical subdivision property), but in the winter, when all the trees have shed their leaves, I have an all-too-clear view of our next door neighbors house.
Still looking out my window, I can see off to the left, the end of our (unattached) garage, a small, two car plywood structure that I think my dad built back when we moved in when I was a baby, or else was buuilt by the previous owners. Behind our garage, between the gravel road (which I can’t really see, as it is, I suppose, cut into the hillside (again, it’s not a massive hill, just a normal hill), above the level of our yard, sloping up toward the level of the neighbors house, and the wild stretch of vegetation, there is an open area, behind our garage, which, when I was much younger, was filled with wild grass as tall as I was, and my sister and I would go into this, “the jungle”, and have an absolute blast as we got completely lost in the grass. (“the jungle” is about the size of an average bedroom–not big, not really possible to get lost in, but we managed, all the same, and it was awesome) Then, of course, what ahd been an empty gravel lot on the other side of the wild vegetation was bought up, and the new owners built a house, and converted our “jungle” (as it was part of the vacant lot, not actually our property) into a garden. Which, unfortunately, gives me a much too clear view of our neighbor taking a lawn mower to very rough ground (yes, taking it to the small bushes/rosebushes/etc), and taking a weed whacker to brush, and a brushwhacker to small trees. And, of course, plowing the garden downt he slope, instead of across it, so all the run off from their property flows down their garden, and into our back yard, making a very audible stream in the spring time right outside my window. (I ahve also seen aforementioned neighbor taking a lawn mower to the weeds growing alongside the gravel road. Yup, you heard right–I have been driving up the hill out to the main road, and she ahs been walking along mowing the shoulder of the road. I kid you not.)
Moivng to the living room, so that the wall with my bedroom window is on the left, we have a set of–waht are they called? Picture windows? As in, the ceiling (floor of the floor above) extends only half way out over the living room, creating a very high ceiling, and on floor level, there are four large windows, with four slightly smalle ones above these, up toward the ceiling. These windows look out over–I suppose it would be the side yard. They offer a view of our back porch, which is a good 10 ft or so above the ground, as the ground slopes down at a respectable degree, leveling off a bit as it hits the lake shore. (Makes a respectable sledding hill in winter, provided the lake is firmly frozen at the time, or else you will end up almost in it…..and as long as you watch out for the fringe of trees.)
Beyond the yard, which is a decent size, you can see the lakeshore, surrounded here by a thin fringe of trees–mainly a mixture of birch and spruce, with some smaller trees interspersed. In the summer, this creates a small screen between the lake, but there is still a very good view of the lake. The lake itself isn’t all that wide here, maybe a hundred feet across, and very shallow. On teh other side, there are no houses directly across from us (and this is techinically our property, too, it’s in two seperate parcels, really, the part wehre our house is, a segment across teh lake, then the property at the very end of the lake on this end is goverment owned, I believe), just the lakeshore sloping back up to a peak before, out of sight, dipping down again to the next lake over.
The ground on the otherside of the lake is covered in a dense growth of bushes, diamond willows, cottonwoods (they coat the lake soemthing fierce int he summer, sometimes), birches, and spruce, completely screening the road, and the small foot path (the remains of where the road used to be, long ago), in the summer, as it curves around the lake to the houses ont he otherside, but in the winter, when the trees are bare, is still visible.
Turning 90 degrees to the right, and leaving the living room, I can go either halfway up the stairs, where there is a small landing, with another window, go all the way up to my parents room, or go to my sister’s room right below (or the basement, too, but that window is right at ground level, below my sister’s, which is below my parents–not a great view.
Looking out this window, I can see our front yard, stretching out almost as far as our front yard, but not as wide, more of a narrower stretch, about the width of our house. This extends out, until the ground is once again reclaimed by the wild vegetation, but right before this, on the edge of the yard, I can see mine and my sister’s swing set, which, in recent years, was converted to pens for the orpahned ducks/geese I was raising for rehab (so the swings now hang down into the area inside the pen, which means that they’re really not functional anymore), coming in closer to the house, to the left of the yard, before a finger of wild vegetation takes over, there is a small bulkhead, preventing the ground from sliding down hill, then on the lower level, a small stretch of yard, then the shed. On the left of that, the finger of dense vegetation, then a finger extending out from the side yard, a ways into the vegetation (can’t actually be seen, the trees are too thick). Looking straight down, I can see the wooden walkway dad built probably ten years back, that stretches from our front porch, to the stairs going up to our garage (much nicer w/ the boardwalk–no mushy mud in spring, no plowing there in winter, just shoveling it like more stairs–‘course, dad does taht….). Also, to the right of the yard, there is a slope going from our yard up to the garage, with a “path” on it, worn from us walking up and down it (and lsedding in winter).Between the path and the yard, dad has recently converted the slope into a terraced garden of sorts, with several levels, each blocked off with rose colored pricks (those curved ones, y’know?). In the yard right in front of the first terrace, is a small tree, then in the first terrace, several patches of rhubarb, above that, we ahve a row of strawberries planted (though the slugs and birds usually get to these before they’re ripe, and they don’t get all that big, anyway–don’t even ask about the carrots we tried, once, they didn’t even get as thick as a finger.)
On the edge of the yard, and above this path and terraced area, the hillside is taken over once again by wild vegetation, with our gravel driveway cut into it, sloping upwards from our garage, and paralleling the road, requiring us to make a 180 degree turn to get into the driveway, and since htere is no where to turn around in the driveway, we must back out of it, to the road. it’s not all that long, but it is mildly steep, which in winter when it’s icy can be bad, ‘though usually we never have difficulty. The gravel road, though, going up the hill parallel to our driveway? That’s the real killer when it’s horridly icy–people have toruble with it all the time when we get the thaw in January and everything is ice with running water, then refreezes to ice. Except us–it’s usually not that bad for us–good vehicles, or good driving, I s’pose. Prhaps some of them neglect to use studded tires, which is just dumb, in winter.
Um, so, yeah, the fourth wall doesn’t ahve a window, lucky for anyon e reading this!
In my room I have two walls that have large windows in them. Over my bed (on the left side when you walk in my door) is trees. There’s one tree with two big branches they split near the base, so it almost looks like two trees really close) is right next to the window, so sometimes squirrels or the cat climb up it and peer in at me. Beyond that is a tangle of wild raspberry bushes that the birds like to land on and that are filled with berries in the summer. Past that is a scraggly barbed wire fence grown over with rosebushes and weeds, then more scraggly woods. There is one tree that has several knotholes that the squirrels live in, so I often get to watch them running around the branches. There are also two dilapidated metal sheds that hold recycle bins and a big freezer. Both sheds are missing doors and the recycle one has some rusty concrete mixers outside of it.
The other side of my room looks out over a small yard area with trees in it, a pond and the brick sidewalk. The back of the house is off to the right and to the left is a shack that holds the water heater for the floor (we have radiant heat in the house). Beyond all this is a wide open field that is our “front yard”, with more woods on the opposite edge.
From the house the front windows look out over the field, and you can just see the roof of my mom’s silversmithing shop in the woods. Looking down the hill to the left is the driveway winding towards the house, more fields and then the neighbor’s field with their cows and just visible is their white barn, the rest is hidden by trees.
IN the kitchen the windows over the sink look into the woods and across the creek (it’s rather far and there’s a really steep hill-almost a cliff in some places). There’s also a small footpath that leads to the silversmithing shop.
There are other windows, but they offer pretty similar views.
So yeah, lots of trees. And fields. And a creek. that’s what I get to look out at.
Oh wow thanks GAPAs! I didn’t think we’d actually get a thread like this. neato!
1) Rivers! Snow! What a strange alien place you live in.
I’m just kidding, that sounds wonderful. I can’t imagein seeing ships from where I live, so cool.
2) Brick houses are so nice! Everyone around here has stucco for the most part.
4) Luna you have a gift of description. THat all sounds so rugged. Which I suppose you might be tired of hearing (don’t people usually try to describe Alaska as rugged?) Well more like it sounds really beautiful…aw jeez you guys all have forests and trees and natural landmarks around you.
5) Raspberry bushes? Fields? That all sounds very lush. And fragrant. Hmm. I always wanted to live by a creek!
What a shock for me! Here I am in the middle of suburbia… The view from my window is predominantly of our neighbor’s house which is set up higher than ours. If I kind of move around from where I’m sitting I can see polygonal type cutouts of the sky. To the left is a eucalyptus tree that catches the light and casts a dappled shadow on the wooden fence. Directly in front is my peach tree which sometimes blossoms quite prettily…
A very average suburban view. But sometimes when it’s clear and if we’re way up on the top of a hill, you can see the ocean in the distance.
Probably unrelated, but when we were in New York I noticed no one had fences! Well there were some, and there’s still a sense of where your property ends of course…Also everyone seems a lot nicer than in California. Maybe that was just me though.
6~ Hmm. Looking out my windows right now isn’t really what I’d call “lush”. The raspberry bushes are all a big tangle, and in the winter they look really weedy and scrubby. The fields are dried grass, so they’re kind of yellowed and brittle looking. The trees I look out on are the rough bark and gnarled branches type, but not very romantic near my room, just sort of scrubby and barren. You can’t really see the creek from the house (and definitely not from my room!), but you can see over it, if that makes sense.
I forgot to mention the rusting machinery that lurks around here too. There’s a bulldozer under a tarp in the driveway and behind that is a cub tractor that I built into a fort using leftover bricks in a sort of castle like structure.
There are also old cars, cement mixers and tractors in various states of disrepair all over the place. To the extent that it sometimes feels like I’m living in a junkyard. When I was little I was a lot more like that than I am now, I used to dress up in scruffy clothes and go climb on machinery and never think anything of getting covered in engine grease when I was hanging out with dad in the barn.
As I’ve gotten older I think I’ve lost some of that connection I used to have with being outdoors all the time (I didn’t have as much schoolwork to keep me in, nor did I have my own space indoors, so I found myself making my own places outside) and getting grimy on tractors and stuff, eating beans out of the can with a spoon that had been bouncing around the floor of the truck for a few weeks, that sort of thing.
No I try to keep my hands clean so I don’t mess up my instruments, I don’t like getting my clothes ripped and mussed, I spend my free time on the computer, reading, writing, or practicing instead of playing outside…..I don’t know, I sometimes miss it, as crazy as that sounds, especially since it’s certainly still an available choice.
But I digress, the part of my upbringing as a junkyard mutt has a link to the topic of this thread probably only in my own mind.
Oh well.
(7) But the old cars and such are spread out here and there, so there’s no junkyard feeling. More like a sculpture garden.
8~ Ah, good. Sculpture garden is cool.
Well, in one corner of the woods (around the back of my room, as it happens) there’s a significantly higher junk car to everything else area. There’s several “parts cars” (cars that dad dragged home “at a great price” for the sole purpose of taking apart and using to fix other cars with) and the old rusty concrete mixer (the big one, not the little one….), a few old barrels, some dilapidated boats and some old beer bottles from heaven’s only knows where. Archeologists someday will have a heyday.
I think sometimes I can see them more because I know they’re there, hidden though they may be with honeysuckle and rosebushes.
5-7–oh, raspberry bushes! I forgot to mention, growing densely along the uphill side of the bulkhead in the front yard, are raspberry bushes. Not wild ones, we transplanted some sprouts–is that the right word?–a friend gave us, and lo and behold, they really took to the location, and now, every fall, around late August/early September, the bushes are completely aldenw ith berries, big, red juicy berries–about the size of the average radish–they are very large compared to wild raspberries. And no sooner do we pick all the ripe ones, then, almost the very next day there is another set of berries ripe for the picking. The last few years, there have been more than we cold possibly eat, and we ended up with a large number of gallon size ziplock baggies of ’em in the freezer. I think mom made most of them into jelly, though…..yum!
(9) They aren’t just run-of-the-mill cars either. I hope you won’t mind if I post a photo (I’ll take it down if you do), but I love this:
11- that is wonderful!
I love the view from my dorm window. There is a grassy field with brick buildings surrounding it and pretty gnarled trees.
At home one of my windows looks out onto our street. There are various sizes and shapes of houses and yards with hills leading down to the sidewalk, then the patch of grass with a tree every house or so, then the street. My other window looks out at my neighbor’s house.
11–cool! of course we don’t mind!
12–You are lucky. The view from my dorm sucks. Looking out it, toward the left, if I stand toward the right side of my window and look as far tot he left as I can, I see a parking lot for the dorm complex. Directly outside my room (well, ground level outside my room, directly outside my window is open air), there is a small amout of grassy area with a cement path cutting through it to the sidewalk, which parallels a two lane road (as in, two lanes each direction, plus a middle turn lane). Across the road I have a “lovely” view of yet another dorm complex, taking up most of the view. To my right, all I can see is the outer wall of the adjoining wing of the complex, perpendicular to my own wing, stretching up 8 (approximately, maybe 9) stories into the sky. Not a very nice view at all.
Hmmm, I suppose there is a tree in the grassy area between my wing and the adjoining wing, but it doesn’t do much for the view.
My view from my bedroom window at home is nothing special, but when I was dorming in Israel last year my apartment was on the highest forward-facing floor, and I could see half of Jerusalem from my window. It looked the best at night, when the Old City was all lit up, and you could hardly see the solar-heated water tanks on everyone’s roofs, all you saw were the lights in the windows.
One of my bedroom windows looks onto a large, semi-public garden, and two small but very tall tree. Caught in one of them is a paratrouper squirrell that has been up there for about two years now. My other window looks down the street to a church, and during the spring you can see the moon right there in the blue sky. It’s a treat to see the stars because usually the clouds are in the way.
My bedroom window looks over the sidewalk and the patch of grass with a few bushes that are right next to a brick wall. It’s nothing special, but at night, when I lie on my bed I can look out of the window and from that angle you can see the moon shining down among the stars…
*
(^o^)
My view looks out of my vertical window from a small room. Everything looks a bit blurry because of the frost on the window. From my bed I can see a bare tree that is about level with my second-story window, with pure snow sprinkling its branches. It’s snowing lightly, and everyone is inside because most of us have the flu (‘Tis the season… a bit late, but still…). There is a hill in the background and a small pond on which we dare each other to skate during the times when there is black ice. My bedroom window looks out onto the garage roof, which I often climb onto, but right now it is covered with snow. Later when my friends are awake we will build snow forts on our garages and stuff.
Out the front window of my bedroom, you see my neighbor’s houses across the street, occasionally including a drunken neighbor. The back, you see expanses of wood and swamp, and in the winter where there are no leaves, you can see to the pond behind the stable. A horse and two goats munch on hay, and to the left of them, you see my dad’s homeade fire pit with the little DIY patio and my mom’s food garden. Directly below is the hot tub, and you can drop things into it unnoticed if the person in it is unintelligent.
Looking out my bedroom window, there is a yard (white at the moment, as we just got snow) and then a VERY, VERY busy street,
Then there is a big backyard and lots of woods. There is a swing-set that nobody uses anymore with a bright blue slide and yellow monkey bars. Far, far back in my yard there is a little one-room house that has no electricity, running water, or anything, for that matter. It has spiders, a dirty, cold brick floor, and lots of cobwebs. On a rare occasion somebody will make a very brave attempt at cleaning it. Hours of work could not make a dent in it. 
We commonly refer to it as the “play house.” Then there is a stone fort that you can stand on but really shouldn’t for safety reasons. There is a red brick patio and an alley behind the house for garbage cans. There are lots of animals, including a brown rabbit that you can see hopping around every now and again (we are pretty sure this is the fourth or fifth generation; we’ve been watching the Brown Rabbits around our yard since I was very little). 
Wow, this thread didn’t last very long…
My window sort of looks out on the roof, and then you see the street. It’s not very interesting, just a lot of traffic and loud college students. (I guess there are quiet ones too, but i never notice them because the’re quiet.)
My window… My window looks out on a row of holly bushes, with a few speckles of our dead yard in between. Over them, sitting at my desk, you can se the oak trees in our front yard, in front of the neighbor’s house. Further away, there’s a couple more houses and the tops of more oak trees, plus one or two other trees. If you look downward, there’s a fair amount of leaves, the bed of rocks, and a thing of tape that’s been there forever. Oh, and just below the holly bushes, there’s a few other bushy stuffs, some random reedy bushes, a oregano plant, a lavender plant, and with a bit of searching, a small rosebush. Sparrows often flit in and out of the holly bushes, chirping as they go. I also get a fair view of the sky, which today looks like it’s going to rain, with no sky anywhere, and that kind of whitish-grayish cloud. Only it’s not going to rain. By 12:00, it’s all going to vanish, and the sky will be blue, with small puffs of clouds here and there.
Next window…
We don’t have a window on the side of our house. If we did, it would look out on the side of our neighbor’s house.
So I move to the back. Looking out here, I see the backyard, as much as it can still be called a yard. The grass has been steadily dying. Along the left side of our yard, a hedge separates our yard from our neighbor’s. it has rocks along the edges, and ends in a rather scraggly-looking juniper thing. There’s a few trees visible from here, one of which has a birdbath hanging from it, and a rope ladder leading up into it. There’s also a chille pecane bush beside one of the trees. A sandbox lives near the back of our yard, uncovered right now, and with a shovel sticking up out of it. A greenbelt goes behind all, which looks as if it’s a large forest, but really if you set out into it, you would come to another row of houses in minutes. The yard is covered in leaves, with a few random sticks, rocks, and other interesting things around. There’s surprisingly few weeds, but then it’s been a dry year. Moving to a window with a more unobstructed view of the yard, I can see four more trees, one of which is a juniper rather than the accustomed Live oak. A rope swing hangs suspended from a tree just beside the juniper, and in the summer, virginia creeper covers two other trees. A flower garden sits sadly just below the window, mostly dead or dying. A vegetable garden also sits, near the lefternmost corner, holds the promise of a greenery. Behind that is more greenbelt, and my friend’s flower garden. Behind that is my friend’s old swing set, that we both used to have so much fun on. The back patio, which I’ve neglected mentioning, sits on the other side of our flower garden, with chairs and a table on it. A porch with stairs going dow to the patio also exists. Beyond all that, I can see my friend’s porch, a fragment of her house, some interesting kind of tree in bloom, and a stone wall put up by my friend’s neighbor. There’s a few more random details, but nothing exciting. I could go to the other window in front, and describe that, but I really see no point. I apologize if I have gone on too long.
I took a great picture out of my front window yesterday. It was really warm and sunny, and the clouds were gorgeous. I have a little sign that says ‘Peace’ on my window, so I took a picture with the beautiful sky as a backdrop for the peace sign. ‘Twas amazing.
My window looks out onto a maple tree that, in the fall, tints the light a nice yellowish shade and in spring/summer a greenish shade but during winter merely looks dull and bleak. Beyond the tree are two more trees, a cottonwood and dieing ponderosa pine. Today, the grass is interspersed with patches of miserable, decidedly unfluffy snow. Beyond the grass is a street. Beyond the street is a flower garden, a couple small trees, and a house.
The dining room window looks out on the patio, which has a round table and grill on it. Beyond the patio is an ash tree with a bird feeder dangling, a pondorosa pine, and a little patch of mud and weeds. The mud is flanked by three spruce trees, one fat, one tall, and one near dead. Next to the fat spruce tree is a vegetable garden. On the side of that garden opposite to the spruce tree is a weedy ponderosa that is in the main blocked from view by a squirrel feeder.
The kitchen window looks out on a small flower garden and the nondescript side of another house.The branches of the cottonwood reach in from the side.
The living room window looks out on much the same things the dining room does, with the addition of a bird house and the branches of a silver maple. In the distance, several housetops can be seen, with a thicket of treetops above them.
The bathroom window looks out on the roof of a house and the branches of a birch tree.
My parents’ bedroom window looks out on that ponderosa pine, with the maple’s branches reaching in. Below it are several miscellaneous shrubs.