Over the course of the summer, I would monitor what I encountered in nature. I would use my Fitbit when I exercised outside and would document what species I would see. I spent my summer in Austin, Texas, McAllen, Texas, and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The heat was a common factor in all of them. Many of the trees around Texas were very green and healthy. Mexico was very brightly colored with its flowers and plants. When it would rain, I would imagine how grateful all plants must feel to get hydrated. The weather was extremely hot, mostly over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I would go running everyday around my neighborhood or after CrossFit, exploring new routes each time. I encountered lots of different species.
I saw a water snake, a turtle, tadpoles, and lots of different birds at McKinney Falls in Austin. I saw a baby frog in Blunn Creek near St. Edward’s University. I have only seen the big ones so it was nice to be able to see it up close.
I saw moths surrounding and attracted to my porch lights in McAllen, Texas. They were there every night, without fail. I also saw a vast amount of fire ants near my house at the neighborhood park. There were pretty large grey mounds of dirt, which I suppose are the fire ants’ homes.
In Cabo San Lucas, Mexico I saw flamingos that I fell in love with. I also saw several iguanas there too. You don’t see these in Texas because Los Cabos has a more tropical climate and it is in the Pacific Ocean. When I was out in the ocean, I saw lots of seals, fishes, and a sting ray when I went paddle boarding. Luckily, no sharks.
I saw flowers about to bloom to flowers that were dying. I saw lots of palm trees: short, fat, tall, or lean.
To my surprise I saw mushrooms growing on someone’s grass. Other than the edible ones, I have never seen them at all, much less up close. They were a yellow-brownish tone and it was about six of them. Since mushrooms are fungi, they most likely grew due to the rain since the soil was moist combined with over-irrigation. According to Weekend Gardener, these fungi are “beneficial because they decompose organic matter, thereby releasing nutrients that are then available for plant growth” (Mushrooms 1). When I ran back a few days later, they were still on the grass, but no longer attached to their root as if the owner of the house wanted to get rid of them.
Also, I saw countless sunsets. They were just beautiful. I would sit on a bench and just look up until before I knew it the sky was already dark. That was honestly my favorite part.
Sometimes I would find a hidden trail that I haven’t explored and wander off, surrounding myself by green scenery. Other times I would get lost or get followed by bees, but that’s when I knew I was doing it right. As Aldo Leopold stated in A Sand County Almanac, “the most fun lies in seeing and studying the unknown.”
Additionally, the days when I was in the pool, I would notice that bees and wasps were attracted to the water. They would arrive to the surface of the pool water and stay there for at least a minute or two then leave. It was astounding to see the amount of times they would come back for a drink of water. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, “bees need lots of water to keep their nest alive” (Honey 1). I assumed they were drinking water before or after pollinating the flowers surrounding my pool. However according to the American Journal of Botany, “pollinators that are attracted to pools are composed of distant relatives of L. Fremontii,” (Sargent 1) which is the scientific name for a flowering plant species.
One of the differences I noticed when I spent time in nature over the summer was that I am more active. The days I am outside my FitBit shows that those are the days with the most steps. When I spend time in nature by going on a run, my heart rate increases, I burn more calories, and increase my miles. Also, I noticed I was less stressed the days I would be outside. When I would feel like I needed to clear my head or wanted to de-stress, I would resort to running outside. In other words, it helped me relax and ultimately resulted in a good night’s sleep.
In France, nature is simply breathtaking – anywhere you look. From beautiful gardens, to major rivers, to unique species, and the prettiest of trees, France makes you want to be outside all the time. However, one thing I noticed is how disregarded nature can get when people litter. It frustrates me to know someone would purposely drop trash on the ground instead of properly placing it in a trashcan. Therefore, the theme that I will focus on over the course of the semester is littering. I plan on focusing on the trash system and what can be done better and comparing the overall littering in France versus the United States.
Over the summer, I compared littering between Austin, McAllen, and Cabo San Lucas to find that I enjoyed spending the most time in nature in Los Cabos because it had the least amount of littering compared to the other cities I visited in the summer. Littering has a huge impact on how one appreciates nature. Austin was next in regard to having more littering than Cabo, but less than McAllen. I realized I didn’t enjoy my time in nature in McAllen as much as I did the other cities because the littering was by far the worst. I never truly saw the correlation between littering and nature enjoyment until I was able to compare different environments.
Ultimately, it saddens me to know people could intentionally litter or put something where it doesn’t belong. There’s a moral and ethical side behind the action, but in the end they are polluting the place in which they live in. There are two solutions G. Tyler Miller and Scott E. Spoolman suggest will minimize pollution overall: pollution cleanup and pollution prevention (Miller 11). If we try and help this problem by putting trashcans in places where it’s convenient for people or by educating them more, then maybe we’ll learn that we cannot take the Earth for granted. As Aldo Leopold stated, “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.” Overall, we must treat this planet as our home!
REFERENCES:
1. “Honey Bees and Your Swimming Pool.” United States Department of Agriculture. http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=11067&page=7
2. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac.
3. Miller, Tyler G. and Spoolman, Scott E. Living in the Environment.
4. Mushrooms in Lawn. Weekend Gardener. http://www.weekendgardener.net/plant-diseases/mushrooms-090809.htm
5. Sargent, Risa. “Effect of Local Community Phylogenetic Structure on Pollen Limitation in an Obligately Insect Pollinated Plant.” American Journal of Botany. http://www.amjbot.org/content/98/2/283.short