I visited Bull Creek District Park on January 24, 2015 at 12 pm and it was 70 degrees outside.
The first word that comes to my mind when I am at Bull Creek is “pretty” and I kind of wish it wasn’t. There is so much more to this place than “pretty” and it reminds me of a certain quote in A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, “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.” This quote exactly describes my feelings today. Bull Creek is art, our environment is art, and it is so vast and beautiful that I cannot express how amazing it is through language except it seems with the word “pretty”, but I will try today.
Bull Creek is a place I have grown up visiting almost every other weekend. When I was young I used to swim in the creek with the other children, and now I come every once in a while to enjoy the serenity while drinking my coffee, or to take my dog out for some fun. It is a park filled with many memories and much love.
During this visit the water was flowing beautifully and strong due to the rain we have had the past few weeks.
Since it wasn’t too cold out, many people were there with their family and dogs. Dogs were splashing and running and kids were hiking and jumping through the water. The main trees of this area are the Oak Tree and the White Cedar Tree, which I found using the leaf snap app. There was an abundance of these two trees, but as you walked closer to the water you could see many of the vegetation was brown and dead due to the winter weather.
As you look into the water you can tell there is a vast ecosystem here made up of many insects and small water creatures. The water was shallow in these parts, and I did not observe any fish. Although, next time I plan to venture into the water as I did as a child and really see what is in the ecosystem. I walked to the edge of the water and took a photo of the dirt. If you look, you can see rocks, leaves, sticks, and a shell. This shows a small glimpse into the ecosystem of this park; that it is not just rocks and water, but that there is so much more to uncover.
There is so much nostalgia and love that I sense in this park. As I sit on a rock with my legs dangling over the water I faintly hear a bird chirping, but not many, I assume because of it being winter time, and I hear children splashing and love seems to just be everywhere here no matter what age or what season it happens to be. I am excited to keep journaling about this park and seeing the progression over the seasons to come.
