Nature Journal: Part 14

For my fourteenth nature journal, I chose to write about my experience in Purdy, Missouri over thanksgiving break. I have had the opportunity to spend six of the last eight summers serving at a camp in Purdy. Although I have not had the opportunity to spend my last couple summers at camp because of school and work commitments, I try to stop by whenever I have a chance. With a population of just over 1,000, the city of Purdy is a speck on a map. However, it is home to a view unlike any I have ever seen. Down the road from the cabins is a bluff that overlooks the Missouri countryside. Hundreds of feet below my feet is a river that flows into the Lake of the Ozarks. In front of me is a cornfield that extends as far as the eye can see. I arrived at camp just before sun set and I watched as the sun dip below the horizon and sink into the sea of gold that was the corn. As I sat there on the rocks, I could not help but imagine the world around me. I have had the opportunity to grow up in the city of Omaha, Nebraska, and attend a school in Fort Worth, Texas, but neither of these cities has exposed me to nature as pure as the countryside of Purdy, Missouri. While the town of Purdy is decades behind Omaha and Fort Worth, it has yet to be sullied by the marks of industrialization. I often wonder if the sacrifices we have made for simplicity are worth the loss of the environment around us.

Nature Journal: Part 13

For my thirteenth nature journal, I decided to write about my experience in the quiet section of Mary Couts Burnett Library. Specifically, the quiet section with vaulted ceilings and large arched windows. I usually spend my mornings before mammalian physiology lecture sitting at a table in the back corner. Unknowingly, I have always left for class before the sun made it over the top of Sid Richardson Hall. It was not until dead days that I noticed the rays creep in through the windows and ignite the room like a fire. I have spent the past several days watching the sun slowly climb, brick by brick, over the top of the Sid Richardson Hall. From inside the library, I watched as the beams of light slowly engulfed chairs and tables until the entire South side of the room was blanketed in its power. Although the light often reflected off the glossy surfaces of the tables, it was the heat the forced me to move. After sitting in the presence of the sun’s rays for ten minutes, I felt like I was going to overheat. The temperature of the room increased noticeably. However, as I looked back outside, I noticed the sun reflecting off the leaves of the trees. I started to think about the way the trees outside use the energy of the sun and convert it into sugars for their own use. Furthermore, my fascination in the world around me was reignited in the same way the sun lighted up the room I was in. Humans build structures to protect themselves from the sun while plants and animals of earth bask in its presence as a way of life.

Nature Journal: Part 12

For my twelfth nature journal, I decided to write about my experience in Charleston, South Carolina during fall break. While there are a number of things I could have written about, my experience in the Atlantic Ocean was by far the most impactful. I had the opportunity to spend several days on the beach taking in all the world around me had to offer. On our final day, several of us decided to walk out to a sandbar a couple hundred yards offshore. What we thought would be a five-minute swim turned into half an hour of dodging waves and trying to maintain focus on the sandbar barely visible above the horizon. It was not until we reached a point that I could no longer feel the sand beneath my feet that I started to think about insignificant I am in comparison to the world around me. I was swimming in an ocean stretching thousands of miles across the globe. I was just a speck of dust floating along with no control of my own. The currents and waves guided my every move. I had never felt so powerless but so powerful at the same time. Although before we studied the work of Aldo Leopold in class, my experience in the Atlantic Ocean was the first thing that came to mind when I first read the quote, “to think like a mountain.” I believe there is the same sense of timelessness associated with the ocean as a mountain. I would even go as far as to say to think like an ocean is to think bigger than a mountain. Unlike a mountain, the ocean controls so many aspects of life on earth including climate regulation. The sheer power of the ocean overwhelmed me in the same way the waves crashed over my head. Once we made it to the sandbar and looked back at the shoreline, I could not help but think of how vast the world is and what we are potentially risking if we do not step up and take care of the world around us.