Since we were assigned this nature blog, I chose to observe and write about one of my favorite places. Blunn Creek was a place that I went to fairly often last year, when I lived on campus. There are a lot of cool spots to sit down and just enjoy what nature has to offer. When I went to the creek one day, I went down near the water. There was a spot with some logs placed as seats. It was a cool spot; secluded from the busy city around me. Yet, something ruined this part of the creek for me. The trash all around the reserve and by those logs created such an eyesore. The geography of the area is so nice and the creek is teeming with all types of life but trash collects on the banks and throughout the park. This gave me an idea for the semester project that we are also assigned. I want to walk through the park every week or so and just pick up the trash. I could measure how much I collect every time and see how often the littering occurs. But mainly, I want to get rid of the trash because it is ugly and unnatural to such a beautiful location. This experience also made me think of a part in the Sand County Almanac where Aldo Leopold says, “Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect”. Two key words in the quote are love and respect. Just simply dropping an empty plastic bottle on the ground may not seem hateful or disrespectful but that action times a thousand every day becomes a problem. Almost everywhere I go, I see some type of liter or pollution to the environment. I think that people have become so inconsiderate of nature. Most people would not throw trash on the floor within their home but a handful of people would throw trash on the street. Overall, this first blog experience has given me an idea for the rest of the semester and motivation to try and clean up one of my favorite places.
