“Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty.” – Aldo Leopold
January 15, 2015
I decided to write my first blog entry on a little place I stumbled upon one day when I was walking home from school: Mabel Davis Park. It was both sunny and cold — beautifully contrasting weather, so instead of taking the bus I thought it would be a good idea to enjoy the sunny weather because it had been cloudy and overcast for weeks. On my way home I also decided to take a more scenic route, one that I had been wanting to take for some time now, and thought today would be the perfect day to do so. I didn’t realize that the route I took would lead me to a small, but beautiful park near my apartment. Even though I enjoyed my time sitting in the middle of hundreds of trees, I didn’t stay as long as I would have liked because I wasn’t wearing the proper attire to be exploring through the forested area where my main interest lied. While I sat there in silence, soaking in the tranquility of the moment, I noticed dainty little flowers trying to break through in the sparse patches of glass amongst the trees. They won’t survive long since it’s still a little cold out. All of this was interrupted by something I could hear far off in the distance.
In the distance I heard a running stream of water. It was so faint that I would not have been able to hear it had I not been sitting there in silence for several minutes. I made it my mission to find what my ear could hear. Very quietly I walked deeper through the trees. The sound of water still faint, but another sound was growing the further I walked. It was the chattering sounds of fox squirrels. There were lots of them up above in the trees, but I didn’t think to snap a picture because they are so common on the St. Edward’s campus that now I feel like I see them everywhere. I’ll try to remember to take one next time if I see them again, which I probably will. Slowly I became more and more aware of the natural smells surrounded me: tree bark, dirt, leaves, etc. until I finally found the stream of water I had heard a little while ago. I didn’t search for where the main source of that water was coming from, but I enjoyed the sounds for a bit longer than I had anticipated (it had been a little over an hour of exploring).
So I made my way back home, but stopped to look at one more thing in the park: man-made ponds (or at least that’s what I think it is. I’ll look into it later and report back). Over the next few months I hope to document the changes I see in this park, whether that be the appearance or disappearance of creatures, the growth of wild flowers, or the rise of the running stream of water.
