It’s Wednesday March 12th and i’m back at the Nature Place trails. The weather is a hundred times nicer than it was last month, there’s a consistent cool breeze and the trees seem to be looking happier already!
There are small weeds sprouting around old logs and the cold gloomy feeling has faded away.
The stream seems to be faster than before and the running water is audible from farther away. It’s 60 degrees right now and the suns been up for maybe only four or five hours.
I can hear far more birds today than I had last month and I even came across two mice rustling in the leafs.
(When I say “I came across” I mean I screamed and dropped my phone thinking it was a snake.)
The trails have fresh footprints on certain wet areas along the trail, so there have definitely been more people (and pets) here recently than in last two months.
Today’s March 31st and its 9:15am, I came to the trail today to try to get some homework done and finish up an essay I started last night. The weather right now is probably the best I’ve encountered so far, of course that’s natural considering that we’re slowly getting past winter. It’s 65 degrees right now and there is a very light breeze every here and there that feels great.
This visit I spent a good three hours walking around and sitting and reading at various different stops down the trail. The elevation is about 1,365 feet overall and you really start to feel all the steps kicking in once you go about a mile or so in. Being here with more of a personal want to satisfy, I ventured deeper along the path and encountered a few things I hadn’t noticed before.
First off in looking in a decomposed hollow tree trunk, I came to find a plastic bottle and trash that had been tossed into the poor old trunk. It sort of really bothered me to see litter even inside the dang tree, I just couldn’t see myself hanging out with friends walking down a NATURE PRESERVE and feeling okay trashing the place.
Being to far in to reach I didn’t have much of a choice but to keep on going and be sure to not drop any wrappers or trash of my own.
Continuing down the path in looking up I came across what looked like a toy figure standing up and facing the trail on a small ledge about five or six feet up and being the curious person I am I set my backpack down and climbed up to see what it was. In getting up to the little ledge I found that it was indeed a little figurine of a boy and written across the back it said “Protect Freedom.”
It was under under enough of rock that apparently rain and wind didn’t knock it down, yet it was still visible from the trail. I took a picture of it and set it back down where it was. I suppose someone placed it there for a reason. By that time it was around 12pm and about 77 degrees. I really enjoyed this visit I had time to wander around and just take it all in.