Journal #1 - Introduction and the Fort Worth Nature Center

AZ Landscape (from my backyard!)

Hello! I want to welcome you to my nature journal for this semester. You will see several blogs about several of my experiences in nature. I hope you enjoy!

This class, Texts and Treks in Nature, is all about getting outside, reading about the wilderness, and appreciating nature. Growing up in Arizona, I have always respected the outdoors. I grew up hiking and walking on trails in the desert. I learned to appreciate the desert landscape in all of its beauty; the cacti and Palo Verde instead of oak and pine trees, dirt and rocks instead of greenery. Even my house is in the middle of a beautiful desert landscape.

I think there is something truly unique and beautiful about the Arizona landscape. When I talk to people about Arizona, the most common question I get is “isn’t it ugly and dry there?” Yes, Arizona is dry and rocky, but it is far from ugly. It is a different type of beauty; it is not the typical green landscape when you think of nature, but it is beautiful in its own way.

It is this appreciation for nature that motivated me to take this class. I love going out and exploring what the world has to offer, but sometimes it is hard to find the time. I am looking forward to having the time to learn more about nature and spend more time outside.

We are almost one month in to the semester and time has been flying. Thankfully, this class has allowed me to switch up the pace of the craziness of the school year and experience nature at least once a week. It truly has been a wonderful change of pace to put everything in to perspective.

Our second week of class this semester, we had our first visit to the Fort Worth Nature Center to volunteer. I honestly had no idea what to expect but I was excited for the experience of being out in nature and give back to the community.

Upon arrival, our class net with officials of the Nature Center. They had a short presentation and explained to our class what the purpose of our time volunteering there would be. Our class had been spilt into five groups, and each group was assigned to oversee a certain trail at the Nature Center. During the four times that our team volunteers at the Nature Center, it is our job to manage the upkeep of the trail. This includes performing tasks such as trimming invasive plants (called privet) and ensuring the surface of the trail is safe to walk on. In addition to this, our team is also tasked with some more creative duties, such as finding areas to place benches and descriptive signs about plants and animals on the trail.

The trail officials had a lot of trust in our abilities to perform these tasks. Other than telling us what to do, they gave us some tools to trim plants, and from there, we were left to our own devices. I was not sure about the other teams, but our team was hesitant about what to do at first. However, once we got out on our trail (after getting lost a few times!), we started to get into the groove of things. We explored the trail a bit and eventually found some trees and bushes that looked like what the trail officials described as privet. It was invading the path of the trail and so our team spent most of our time on the trail this day trimming it. We made sure to pull out the privet from its roots so it would not grow back.

Our team made a lot of headway in around the hour we were on the trail. We were able to trim most of the privet out of the section of the trail we were working on so it was walkable by trail users. My team felt accomplished by the end of the day. It was great to go out to the Nature Center, volunteer, and be outside for the afternoon; it was a nice change of pace from the stress of the semester!

Fort Worth Nature Center

Fort Worth Nature Center