I think if you'd described the flowers or something it would have made finding the patch of ground a bit more rewarding. As it was, getting a message over and over that says "nothing there" or whatever was more discouraging than anything and didn't seem to add to the game. Make it have meaning. There's nothing wrong with a game that makes the player stop to observe things, but there has to be something to observe. If you say there's nothing there, that's what the player will think. They won't think "oh this is a nice patch of grass."