Who here was raised on nature?

[Fkeu'itan]

I have always lived on the edge of the suburbs, with nature a short walk away, if not a short drive away. When I was very young, my parents often took me on walks through woods, parks, botanical gardens... We have always gone for a weekend or two every year to a nearby country park ever since I was about 3 or 4...

We would go out for (what seemed like at the time) really quite long walks, my parents would try to get me involved in the woodland, to get me to interact with it and (naturally, as a curious 4 year old) I happily obliged. I would have crude bows and arrows made for me to have fun with... We slept in tents, we slept in tiny houses in the mountains that had no beds, but a stone shelf with a sleeping bag for comfort...

As I walked home from school, my Grandfather would teach me how to identify tree types and flowers, he would tell me the distances to the moon, to the sun, teach me natural cycles and a whole lot more.

And so, as I grew up, the forest and the woodland became a part of me, as much as I felt a part of it.

Then, I lost it all. Lost all the simple wonders to technology, to school, to work...

And then Avatar happened, and reminded me that the woods were a real place of home, whether that be blind nostalgia or a true feeling of belonging. It was like the fire - for living with our planet, not just on it - was rekindled and eventually roared again inside me and I again knew where I was meant to be.

After that overly poetic story, the question still stands, who else here lived a large part of their childhoods in, and around, nature?