Blistery Winter Day
I ventured into Blunn Creek for my first journal entry on January 30, 2014 at approximately 1pm. It was a cold day. The temperature was 54 degrees with a slight wind chill. As I made my way through the various trails I did not see any wildlife or any other living thing for some time. The wind was howling and leaves were swirling about the trail yet it was eerily quiet. I stood in the forest for a while before any wildlife ventured out. I saw one squirrel as well as a couple birds during the duration of my stay in the forest. The forest looked dead. Everything that usually had color looked faded and dimmed. Trees were bleached grayish white and the various grasses were brown in color. Even the cacti were fading from green to brown. In the midst of all of the apparent death, there was one massive tree that was still furnished with all of its green leaves. The mixture of living organisms and dead ones was beautiful. The whitewashed sky highlighted the silhouette of the lone green tree and made it stand out from a distance. When reminiscing on this one anomaly, I recalled a quote from A Sand County Almanac. It stated, “…No matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all of the salient facts about any one of them. I find this to be true because nature is undoubtably full of secrets, just like the lone green tree amongst a sea of dead ones.