Nature

Time at the Fort Worth Nature Center makes me appreciate nature trails and the complexity of nature. The hour and a half visits are usually spent maintaining the trails, especially fixing any holes in the trail and cutting down branches and plants in the way. This particular time was spent filling in dirt to sunken areas of the trail and creating dirt mounds to direct the water away from the trail. We learned that the damage to the trail is mostly caused by water running off from the grass and eroding the trail. So basically, all the did was move dirt for an hour and a half. This sounds like an experience straight out of Holes , the popular childhood movie. In fact, we even played the soundtrack of Holes the whole time while we dug, which added to the nostalgic experience. However, there was something so purposeful and peaceful about our task. While some could consider it monotonous, I enjoyed the routine of picking up and placing dirt. My mind got lost in the dirt, as it was the onl...

Spent two hours hiking around Eagle Mountain with my parents. The air was a crisp 40 degrees Fahrenheit, especially early in the morning with not much sun warmth. It was a beautiful hike, though the trees looked dead and exposed as most of their leaves had fallen. The flora consisted mostly of trees. However, there was the occasional splotch of cactus that broke up the landscape from the expected grasses and trees. Course, it is Texas, so cactus should have been a commonplace flora but it still surprised me every time I encountered it. The cactus reminded me of my bestfriend's house growing up. He had a small amount of cactus in the corner of his driveway and it always seemed like a nuisance because our basketball would always fall into it. It's crazy how memories of my bestriend's house always arose seeing cactus. The rest of the trip was marked by small windows of treeline where I could glimpse the pristine lake, besides one 10 minute stretch of shoreline trail, and a ...

When I usually think of nature, I don't think of a music festival. However, over the weekend I attended Austin City Limits (ACL) Music Festival and spent all three days in a park. Most of the space was open grassland but there were some trees that were very clutch when one is trying to escape the tremendous heat. One tree in particular stood out as it's in the middle of the park and the largest tree out of all the surrounding trees. Besides being aesthetically pleasing, the tree served a dual purpose of shade and a meeting point. The group I was attending with got separated multiple times and the best meeting place was the tree. In viewing the park as a whole, I wondered how a music festival as large as ACL invades a natural environment. Is it bad to commercialize parks and turn them into human-focused activities? I noticed how there weren't any animals around and how trampled the grass was... Zilker park is the closest and largest defined nature area to downtown yet it ...

On my walk through Overton Park  close to TCU's campus last week, I noticed many squirrels and small insects, with an occasional bird here and there. The squirrels were just as skittish as the ones at TCU, even more so because the ones at TCU are almost used to people. There were a couple insects that I had never seen before. One looked like a leaf but was completely yellow and was moving like a worm or caterpillar would. It seemed fluffy but I did not want to touch it. The birds were making chirping sounds every now and then as the wind calmly swayed through the park. I pictured the bird sounds dancing on the wind, and it was a truly peaceful moment. However, what truly caught my attention was a trash bag that was hanging on the branch of a tall tree. It almost jumped out at me because it seemed so out of place. In the midst of a walk where I was escaping the city and people, I was suddenly reminded again of man and our effect on nature. How did the trash bag get there? I quest...