10 best photos from Fall 2022

 

Kevin

 

     Over spring break, I went to Florida with a few of my friends to go to the Disney and Universal theme parks in Orlando.  This blog serves as an example of how you can find nature in the least expected times.  We had rented an airbnb on the canals in Merritt Island, Florida in the hopes of being close to the beach, but not so close that it would be too expensive.  I have always preferred the mountains to the beach, but I was willing to give Florida beaches a try.  

     When we got to the airbnb, we discovered that the backyard literally backs up to the canal that leads right into the ocean.  It was fascinating seeing how close we were to the wildlife that lives in an ocean ecosystem.  We saw jellyfish floating right by the dock.  While they are a bit scary, they are amazing creatures deserving of respect.  Later on, we saw a manatee poke its head out of the water for a split second before swimming back into the ocean.  It became something of an activity to just sit on the dock and look into the water.  I couldn’t stop hoping that the manatee would resurface and I would be able to capture it in a photograph, but it never did. 

Kevin standing on the dock

     The closest experience I had was with a heron.  I assumed that this was the same heron that we saw over the course of a couple days, since he would always stand in the same spot on the dock.  As a group we decided to name him Kevin in honor of the beloved bird in the best Pixar film of all time.  One day Kevin was in his normal space and we went out to see if we could get close for a picture of him.  As we approached, he kept his ground and did not appear to be afraid.  As I got close, a truck across the canal ran into a trash can and dragged it up the gravel driveway for a bit, making a loud noise in the process.  I thought this might ruin my chance at a picture.  Instead of flying away, Kevin reared his head back and emitted the very same noise.  I was in awe of how perfectly Kevin imitated the sound.  It is incredible to think that my friend Carson and I were the only people to experience a moment as magical as that. 

Kevin's call

     From the whole trip - theme parks and all - I still remember this moment and that connection with nature as one of the best moments.

Fort Worth's Natural Beauty

 

     When I think of Fort Worth, natural beauty is not the first thing that comes to mind.  Before this semester, I only knew a couple of places nearby where you could find some nature in the midst of the metroplex.  However, in our trips to the nature center and in subsequent adventures to find more wilderness, I have discovered that I simply was not looking hard enough for nature.

     Finding nature in the city like Eiseley has done in his writings is fun, but in my experience, it is not fun if that is your only interaction with nature.  I need an outlet where I can be completely on my own in the middle of nature without any sign of civilization in sight.  That connection with nature is so much purer when I can be away from others and truly soak in the nature around me.  That is a big reason why I’m moving to Denver after graduation, and it was important for me to find a place like this in Fort Worth.

Fort Worth's beauty on display

     While it may not be as immersive an experience as a national park, the Fort Worth Nature Center offers a lot of fun outdoor activities that I look forward to enjoying a lot more in my last semester here on campus.  After volunteering for as long as we did, I feel like I have seen a lot of the area, and it does offer a great way to experience nature without driving too far from campus.  With the wildlife there, it offers a great chance to just sit and observe, deepening that connection with nature.

     That connection can also be felt at Benbrook Lake.  Watching the water move has a calming effect.  It helps me to realize the world is more than what is going on in my life and that there is quite literally more beneath the surface, with creatures poking up from the surface every once in a while to remind me that they had not disappeared.  Seeing the sun set and observing the stars come out felt magical, like a whole different side of the world had finally gotten the courage to show itself.

Japanese Garden in the Botanical Gardens

     The botanical gardens, despite being right next to a major road, offer a great escape from the city.  The Japanese garden is one of my favorite spots because it encourages a meditative state.  With water features, beautiful plants, and even a zen sandbox, it feels like a chance to connect with the living things there and center myself on what is happening in the present, leaving all worries aside.

     Fort Worth definitely has natural beauty. You just have to be looking for it.

Bison Roundup

     Bison are incredible creatures.  I had already known this before the bison roundup.  I had even seen bison up close at Woolaroc and the Wichita Wildlife Refuge, but this experience was unlike anything else I had seen before.  I felt like I was so close to them for so long that I developed an emotional connection with them.  It felt as though I understood them that much more.

     Dr. Williams had mentioned that a guy would be right next to the bison helping to herd them into the gates, but I hadn’t fully processed what that meant. He was mere feet from death - something that we almost witnessed firsthand with all the jostling within the gates.  It was interesting to see that despite all the advances in technology we see today, the way we round up an animal as dangerous as a bison is by putting someone’s life at risk to help these creatures survive.  It brings up the question of whose life is less valuable.  

     After spending hours with these creatures, I started to feel sympathy for them.  This was piqued within the first round of bison, when Maverick ran through and gored one in a bad spot.  She was bleeding from the neck and it was starting to pool around her feet.  I could feel her fear from through the fence, and I could see it in her eyes that she was starting to accept her fate, which she thought was inevitable.  I was amazed at how calm she was in that moment.  Maybe it was from the loss of blood, but I think she has a vastly different experience with death than I.  I have never witnessed something that big die firsthand.  Not a human, not a bison, not a dog.  My view of death is purely abstract.  I have heard about it, but it still doesn’t feel real, like it could happen to me.  But in this moment, I started to realize just how real it is.  That cow had lived her life and was calmly waiting on herself to die, after being gored by a friend in a meaningless attempt to escape the people trying to help him survive.  Now, the bison didn’t understand all of this, but to die in front of all these foreign creatures in a cage by yourself away from your family is not the ideal way I see myself going out.  I felt that fear in the air.

     Luckily, the vet was able to stitch her up and she survived.  She escaped death in this one instance, but she was inevitably going to experience it again.  Just like I will see it happen throughout this world.  It is never enjoyable, but it gives this life meaning.  It makes moments like that so much more valuable.

The Hope of Christmas

      It is December and Christmas is in the air, so naturally, I wanted to take a walk to check out

the Christmas lights in the wealthy neighborhoods around TCU.  This is one of my favorite things

to do to relieve some of the finals stress that inevitably returns each year at this time.  Walks are

soothing in ways that many other of my coveted study breaks - including but not limited to food,

phone, and piano - do not fulfill.  It offers a chance to step outside with some fresh air, get some

exercise and forget that school exists even for a brief moment of time, wandering with no goal,

leaving the path up to chance and wherever she chooses to direct me.

     This particular walk took place on a foggy night, setting a mysterious tone over the already unfamiliar path.  I wandered in and out of neighborhoods, experiencing nature here in a different way.  While there were some natural elements like a creek running through the neighborhood or the wooded areas in less developed areas, something that made me intrigued was how a little fog had completely kept everyone in their homes.  While these neighborhoods don’t believe in sidewalks, it doesn’t necessarily keep people from walking.  In past years, I have passed many people on these walks; some searching for peace like me, others seeking exercise, and even others whose reasons I could not deduce.  On this particular walk, I noticed that the fog - some water in the air - had people stuck inside.  They were not getting to experience the same wonder that I was seeing.

A spooky scene from the walk

     By choosing to walk on that night, I got to experience how the fog interacted with the dark.  The two joined forces in limiting visibility, while the Christmas lights and street lamps fought a glorious battle to continue my walk.  The hope of my walk was kept alive by the spirit of the season, much like my hope of getting through finals.  Instead of killing the light, the fog only made it that much more surreal.  In scenes that looked like they were cut from a horror film, it didn’t look real to see this battle in real time.  The forces of nature had invaded the neighborhood and the residents had felt the shift and chose to stay inside, leaving me as the sole witness of such a wondrous event. 

Skipping Rocks

     Skipping rocks is one of my favorite outdoor activities.  It never gets old, yet it is nearly the same every time.  How can throwing a rock be so much fun?  In some ways, it is fun for the same reasons that spending time outdoors is fun.

     First, you need to find a rock with a good shape and size that will allow it to skip on the water’s surface.  Often this requires a relatively small rock that is flat on both sides so as to spread out the weight.  This is very similar to finding a nice quiet spot full of nature.  Immersing yourself in nature is a lot harder to do when you just spend all your time in the city.  In the same way, it is very hard to skip a rock that is neither smooth nor flat.  While you can sometimes get that rock to skip, you can also find nature in the city, it is just much more difficult.

     Next, you need to master the technique.  Skipping a rock isn’t very difficult, but you need to know how to throw it to get it to skip.  Being in nature isn’t enough to be moved by it.  While you may be moved if you are in the most beautiful places, you also may get a rock to skip by just throwing it.  But to enjoy nature wherever you are, you must put in some effort to connect.  Be quiet, look around, go hiking, maybe even meditate.  All these options will allow you to experience nature to a much higher degree. 

     Now just because you understand the technique and pick a good rock doesn’t mean you can always get a perfect skip.  It takes practice and patience to work your way up to that status.  In a similar way, Thoreau suggests a higher kind of walking in his writings.  A walk that truly takes in all of the surroundings and establishes a spiritual connection with nature.  This isn’t something that is mastered on your first time outside.  He needed a whole immersive experience at Walden Pond to come up with this.  Taking the time to connect and truly deepen your relationship with nature takes time, and the fulfillment you get from putting in that kind of time and effort can pay off in multitudes.

A lake I very much enjoyed skipping rocks on

     Ultimately, skipping rocks is fun because it offers just enough challenge, a fun search, and regardless of how much science can explain it, it always feels just a bit magical to watch that rock bounce across the pond.  In the same way, experiencing nature does all these things and more.

TCU Artificial Beauty

     It’s a well known fact that TCU has an endowment to keep the campus grounds immaculate throughout the year.  I will see gardeners replacing the flower beds frequently, when I still think the flowers in the beds have beauty left to give.  TCU has taken full control over the natural landscape and artificially keeps the campus at its peak of beauty regardless of the outside conditions.  

     The transition from here to my home in Edmond, Oklahoma always has me disappointed in how the gardens there can’t match the elegance of the ones here on campus.  But that is an absurd standard to hold anything - even nature herself - to.  It is unnatural to have flowers be that pristine even in the winter months.  Nature has a way of cycling through death and rebirth, which is a beautiful way to make us appreciate it that much more.  I believe that it is death that gives life meaning, and if death is taken away, then life is not nearly as precious.  In the same way, we need to see these flowers die and shrivel to truly appreciate their rise again to bless the world with their beauty.  Keeping them alive year round has only spoiled me and made me appreciate their presence in nature less. 

A flower bed on campus - beautiful as always

     However, the nature present on campus isn’t all bad.  While the gardens project an unrealistic image for the natural world, they do bring a variety of friends to campus who never fail to cheer me up.  I have had several encounters with an opossum on campus, who is always respectful of my space and enjoys seeing college kids thrive - as long as they continue to support his lifestyle with scraps of food for him to snack on.  A few times I have seen a fox running through campus, and each time he appears lost, as if he doesn’t know how he found himself entrapped in such a foreign place surrounded by the unknown and humans worried about the very same thing.  I have seen a crane strolling majestically through campus as if he owned the place, reclaiming this territory for what it used to be.  Yet as you get near, fear would creep in and he would fly away, as if on campus he was invincible until the outer world started to present its reality.  I have learned a lot from these creatures, and in the process, I have found out that they’re not always so different from you and me.

A crane on campus

My Extended Experience

       Over Thanksgiving break, my family decided to take a road trip to Morehead, Kentucky - a

place I often jokingly describe as the most boring place on earth - to see my grandparents and

help them move into their new home.  We have gone there many times before, since my mom

grew up there and my grandparents utterly refused to leave, despite my mom’s prodding to get

them to move to Edmond to be closer to us, yet I have never found something that would make

me even remotely that insistent to stay.  Nestled in the hills of Rowan County, it’s a college town

that has begun to grow into a larger town because of the medical industry presence.  It is

industrialized enough to make the surrounding nature less exciting and the lack of trails

discourages that kind of activity.  Or at least this was my preconception of Morehead.

     While we were getting fed up with helping to move things from one house to the other and my grandma’s assertions that the laborious efforts of moving large heavy furniture needed to result in the absolute perfect placement among the narrow door frames and hallways, me and my little brother kept looking out the window at a hill just beyond the town, behind the park, that looked like it could be easily climbed.  We were all in need of an escape, so I asked my dad if we could check it out.  

     Five minutes later, we were parked at the base of the hill, already following a trail that I hoped would take us to the top.  There were trees everywhere you looked, and the trail was covered in their fall foliage.  As we turned a corner, we caught a glimpse of white tail deer off in the distance.  I tried to pull out my phone for a quick snapshot of the creatures, but as they heard us, they started running away, and all I managed to capture was their defining feature in a very grainy photograph.  

Deer in the distance

     Along the trail, there was evidence that this hill was used more often for commercial reasons than the recreation we had set out to do.  Drainage pipes jutted out beneath the trail, tire marks helped keep us on the trail, and chain link fencing protected some areas beyond the trees.  The crowning piece of this Morehead mountain was the cell phone tower that was built on the peak.  The irony of going into nature to get off my phone, only to find myself in the place with the best cell service amused me.  This town could not find a way to please me.

A drainage pipe on the side of the hill

Ascending to the cell tower

     However, this experience still gave me joy.  Being able to be outdoors and see wildlife was the escape I needed.  It restored my patience and allowed me to recenter myself and my emotions.  Even though the top was less than as exciting as the untouched peak I had hoped for, there were still gorgeous views.  Seeing nature like this never fails to restore my good mood, and although Edward Abbey or Thoreau would disapprove of this kind of industrialization, I found that evidence of humans and nature helped me to believe that industry and nature might be able to coexist in some form of balance.

The tallest tree

     This coexistence of nature and human development was brought back up in class when we discussed Eiseley’s writings the Wednesday after this adventure and it helped me to reflect more intentionally on what I experienced.  Despite the industrialization that is completely transforming Morehead into what could become a hospital hub for the surrounding rural towns, it is still very intertwined with the nature that has made it what it is.  Situated solely in the valley, Morehead was content with its space and existed in harmony with what was beyond its borders.  This coexistence made me pleased with what had come, and especially pleased that we chose to go on that walk.

     It is worrisome that as Morehead grows, it may try to upset the balance of nature and industry.  My experience on that hill was very pleasant, and I hope that others can have that same escape from their busy lives.  In my opinion, Morehead should leave the hills alone and embrace their unique connection with nature, otherwise I’ll have very little to look forward to when I return. 

Final Video

 Watch our group's final video here! 

https://tcu.box.com/s/l8ij36h36qq8pij5ix7fruyu0f9hsey4

Final Project Justification

Austin Farr, John Freeny, Braden Harrington, William Shorow

         For our final project, we created a showcase of the neighborhoods and nature around TCU’s campus, along with adding testimonials from our group members. Since we learned about many facets of nature, we each focused on different topics. For some, the most valuable knowledge from this class came from learning about the environment through hands-on, collaborative experiences in nature. For others, class discussion about topics like National Parks, beauty in nature, and the remarks of poets and authors were enlightening to their education. Our team wanted to allow our individuality to be reflected in the different takeaways we got from this course.

         Our short film visually explores Lubbock Avenue, the street that most of our team lives on. We specifically chose this location because of the large oak tree we could film in, as well as the wealth of construction that is currently happening on our street. The presence of abundant and destroyed nature allowed us to create a visual juxtaposition, as our video depicts. Each of our team members gave their thoughts from the large oak tree yet had to project their voices over the loud construction. We intentionally chose to keep this apart of our video to showcase the reality of how nature intersects with industry. Oftentimes, the sounds of production and machines drones out the gentle, ambient sounds of nature. We contrasted this busy construction site on the street with the tranquil garden in the church. Although this garden, which overlooks downtown Fort Worth, is on the same street, it seems to be in a different world. Filming at this location allowed us to comment on the nature of beauty in the manicured world, and what makes nature truly beautiful.

         Our team sincerely hopes that you enjoy our short film for this course’s finale. Each of us have learned about and reflected upon the value of the natural world and our responsibility to till, protect, and maintain its beauty. Please enjoy this short film.