” Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language”
-Aldo Leopold (pg. 96)
April is over now, and May has just begun. A few months ago (January, to be exact) I discovered and explored a quaint little park located close to my apartment. I had not returned since that first blog post, but on April 26th, 2015 I found myself there again.The day was beautiful and sunny and my boyfriend was in town for the weekend, and initially our plan was to find a new picnic spot that day. We biked around to a few parks around Austin but could not find a park that was not only a good spot to have a picnic, but to fly our kites as well. Suddenly I remember Mabel-Davis Park! The park I had not been to in months! We go and check it out, and I notice how green everything is.
The grass was tall and wispy – flowers blooming everywhere. The transformation that took place at Mabel-Davis park over the course of just a few months was astounding and absolutely beautiful. There was a hiking trail – which I had not noticed before – and we hiked for a little bit over an hour.
On the trail we came across a number of other hikers, their children, and their dogs. They seemed to have had the same idea as us about going out to take advantage of the beautiful day that awaited us after a week of rain and thunderstorms. The day was rapidly starting to warm up and get to the normal temperature for a spring (almost summer) day in Austin, Texas. The reservoirs of water that I had last seen in January when they were barren, were now full and the vegetation surrounding it was tall and healthy. One of the reservoirs was closed off by the orange barrier construction fence, but my boyfriend and I really wanted to check it out anyway so we hopped over and hung out for a bit near the reservoir. A small Agelaius phoeniceus (better known as the Red-Winged Blackbird) flew up and stood on the fence. It came to join us while we sat and enjoyed nature, and even played us a little song which made everything even more peaceful and whole.
A short while after that we continued our walk along the hiking trail, and came across a raw cotton plant. I had never seen one before, and I had never touched raw cotton before either. It was literally the softest thing in the world. I couldn’t believe there was a cotton plant here! I put some in my pocket and we continued hand in hand on our walk.
Nearing the end of the trail, we were stuck. There was a large tree cutting off the rest of the trail. It must have fallen the night before when it rained heavily. In this moment, I looked up and realized exactly just how large these trees really were. I had not noticed how beautifully tall they are. All it took for me to realize this was to stop and take a look around me. Something I should start doing more often. The large tree that intersected our path was huge as well. We had a little fun with it by climbing on it and such. It made me sad to see this fallen tree, but it was a force of nature that caused it to fall, and that’s better than it being chopped down by someone.
All in all, it was a beautiful trip to the park I visited a few months ago. Lots of things had changed, but this park (and all parks) goes through these similar changes every year. They just seem like change because it’s new to me.
Reflection
I thought it would be fitting to conclude my observations with the first park I went to when I started this project. Although I did not observe the changes of this park throughout the other months, I still appreciated the drastic change I noticed from just a few months passing. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting a variety of different parks around Austin since it kept things interesting and I would always see something new/different – birds, ducks, plants, flowers, water reservoirs, etc.It was pretty amazing to witness the transformation of the ground turning from mushy brown mud to vibrant green grass! This semester has been great. Combined with all of the time I spent outside observing deer for my independent research project, I never realized how much of the surrounding nature I had been missing out on because of not “stopping to smell the roses,” as they say. I noticed my stress levels decrease when I would be outside and active as opposed to being indoors all day doing nothing like productive. This word cloud is a good representation of what my classmates and I would see on our monthly excursions. Words like beautiful, water, trees, and time will always be most prevalent in a blog about nature and wilderness so I’m not surprised those are the most widely used across this blog, A Travis County Almanac.
Through this assignment I learned to appreciate the nature that surrounds me. It’s easy to get caught up in with life, school, work, friend and other things. But it’s important to take the time to really stop and smell the roses. Take a look around! Let yourself be engulfed by the beauty of nature. It really does help relieve stress. This assignment has increased my appreciation for nature and all ecosystems. It also made me more conscious of my impact on the environment, which taught me to be more careful and mindful of how to treat it. I think everyone should take at least five minutes out of their day to observe nature, and make it a routine. It has proven itself to be very beneficial to ones health, and that should be everyone’s number one priority.