I woke up early this morning and decided I wanted to go to Blunn Creek today. It looked like a marvelous day outside. It was sunny, very few fait clouds in the sky, and slightly windy. It was a little after nine in the morning and it was a chilly 48 degrees outside. As I was walking across campus to my destination I couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming scenery of bluebonnets. They were gorgeous and were everywhere in huge masses where the wild/dead grass used to lay. I had never seen anything so beautiful before.
As I was hiking up may way to my destination I say wild bunnies scurrying into the brush as I walked up the trails of Blunn Creek. They were fast and afraid of me even though I am harmless. I noticed a lot of other wild flowers, butterflies, and bees. I saw bluebonnets surrounding cacti and I though to myself that this is what Texas is. I think Texas is a hard and rough terrain like the cactus, but beautiful at the same time like the bluebonnets and other wild flowers that grow in some of the harshest places.
When I got to the creek I saw the usual trees, dead brush, and trash. Then I saw some faint pink in the trees and notices of the plants had pretty pink flowers on it. It was something I had never seen along the creek before. At that moment I realized that spring was here. The flowers were booming and life was coming back from the unusually cold winter we had this year.
While I was at the creek I sat on this huge rock in the middle of the water in silence. “A single silence hangs from horizon to horizon” (p.95). Everything around me seemed so still and tranquil, but I knew there was movement all around. I knew in the water there was little fish swimming, that in the trees there were insects crawling around, and that in the sky there were birds flying. To me hearing the birds chirp and the insects crawl around is what stillness and silence sounds like.
The creek had trash again along the landscape, but it wasn’t as much as usual. The movement of the water was better, or at least it seemed so. I could be blinded by the spring time happiness. The water level was low like usual and I predict it to stay the same because in Austin we shouldn’t get much more rain. Everything just looked better today. Granted there was still a lot of moss in the water, and at some parts it looked like tick hair covering the bottom. There were a lot of bubble coming out of the ground in the water. I think of them as oxygen bubbles, but I have no idea what they are. They could be from insects too. I used to think the trash came from people but I realized that it could very well be blown in from outside of the preserve. We cant protect the surrounding areas of the preserve. I think the land ethic of the preserve is very good. You can see that it is trying to be taken care of and that someone appreciates its beauty.
The ecosystem here is full and diverse. With many types of insects, plants, and animals. All of them connect somehow. They all help their ecosystem and each other stay alive and thrive. The water gives life, the insects and birds pollinate, new flowers are created. It’s all interconnected.
“…men are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution” (P.109). As all ecosystems and species interconnect, humans do too. We play a big role in our vast and ever changing environment.