The cold front broke finally. A balmy sixty-two degrees outside, and I was finally brave enough to muster a voyage into Blunn Creek. Actually, it was still quite cold in the shade, and this lead me to “take the path less travelled” the route in which I found to have more sunshine, literally and figuratively. I believe that Aldo Leopold expressed this idea simply with his summarization of a point from Thoreau:“In wilderness is the salvation of the world” (133). In going outside more often, which was not frequently at all before the nature blog assignment, I have begun to feel this. To feel like there is something greater than ourselves and our arbitrary problems. There are trees in Blunn Creek older than me, my parents, and their parents. There is something very powerful in that fact.
This particular day was quite different than it had been for a week, which was cold and durry, this day was sunny as it had been in January. It is curious that February has turned out to be a colder month than January, and I feel as if the plants and animals of Blunn Creek were just as confused. The Acer grandidentatum, or Big-Toothed Maple trees that lined the creek are currently losing their leaves, as if it were fall. The Pyrus calleryana, or Bradford Pear trees are currently blooming giving off a particularly sweet smell and lining parts of the creek with beautiful white petals.
Blunn Creek is alive. This was the first time I had been in the part a noticed all of the insects, especially the the Ascalapha odorata , or Black Witch Moth which I found many of. This is startling to me, because in Mexico this moth is known as the “butterfly of the death”. Is this some sort of sign that an early blooming spells death for park as the probability that there will be another deep frost is quite high?
Even more frightening are the invaders I focused on for this blog. Because of the cold, I got to thinking about how detached to the natural world our current day human actually is. I hate being cold and would not even dare to go into the park for an extended period if it is under fifty degrees (good thing we live in Austin). When I was in the park this last time, this detachment was painfully obvious. The posts labeled “scenic view” I find quite entertaining. Are we so self absorbed that we have to be told when to pay attention to what is around us? All of Blunn Creek is a “scenic view”, as is all of nature. I feel as if we paid attention more, we would start to get it.
The metaphor of the “scenic view” post extends to many things I saw in the park. Graffiti on trees and cacti, obvious places where people had gone off the trail and trampled the life under their feet. General litter, especially around the creek. We see ourselves not as a part of nature, but as the rulers of it. Truly, we have lost our place in the wild and have become the ultimate invaders.
