Sara's Nature Blog

  My outside magic experience was when we went to the zoo today. It has  probably been  about 13 years since I  have been  to the zoo, so it was nice to relive this experience again but from an older perspective.  As soon as you enter,  you are  greeted with a family of gorillas, and that honestly  sets  the tone for everything. It was  kind of crazy  seeing how big they were but also how human they felt. Their hands and feet looked almost identical to ours, just  way bigger , and watching the mother take care of her baby made it feel even more real.  It  didn’t  feel like I was looking at something completely different from  me;  it felt familiar in a weird way.   After that we went to  the Elephant  Springs and saw a baby elephant with its mom. The whole area was built to look like a real watering hole, and you could tell how much space they had to move around. Then we walked throu...

My favorite photo from these 10 is the one with the cows with the mountain range in the back. I took this photo when I went to Switzerland. I chose this photo because it captures a moment that felt completely different from anything I am used to. The cows are just calmly walking across the open field, and behind them are these huge mountains that almost do not look real. The contrast between the green grass, the blue sky, and the rocky peaks makes the whole scene stand out. What I like most is how peaceful everything feels. This picture reminds me of how big nature is and how small we are compared to it, which is something I do not usually think about in everyday life.  

At the beginning of this semester, I did not really think much about what “wild” meant. To me, being outside was just something casual like going to a park or playing sports. When this class started, I honestly felt like I was forcing myself to be outdoors more, especially with assignments like going to the nature center. It felt like something I had to do rather than something I  wanted  to do.   But over time, that started to change. The more I was outside, the more I got used to it, and eventually I started to enjoy it. I found myself going on more walks, even when I did not have to. Instead of just staying inside or going from one place to another, I started taking time to just be outside for a bit. It was not anything crazy, but it felt different. I was paying more attention to things around me, like the weather, the trees, and just how the environment felt.   Being out in places like the Fort Worth Nature Center also played  a big role  in that shift....

Today at the nature center, we went back to the same field and continued cutting down more privet.  When we first got there, it was actually really cool to see how much progress we have already made.  Compared to last time, you could see way more of the field, and it made me realize how dense everything used to be when it was covered in privet. Before, it felt almost closed in, like you could barely move through it.  Now it is a lot more open, and you can actually walk through the area without constantly getting caught in branches.  It made the work feel more worth it because you could clearly see the difference we were making.   The weather also made  a big difference  today.  It was cloudy and pretty windy, which we are not really used to, but it honestly helped a lot.  The breeze made it easier to work for those two hours, and it made the whole environment feel more alive. You could hear the wind moving through the trees and see the branch...

This week at the Fort Worth Nature Center felt a lot more intense than the first time we went out. Instead of bamboo, we were working in a field that was completely overrun with privet. Before this class, I did not even know what  privet  was, but now it is easy to recognize. It grows in thick clusters and spreads everywhere, creating these dense walls of shrubs that block everything else. It looked like the privet was taking over the entire area. Our job was to cut it all down, and we spent about two hours out there doing that.  At first, it just looked like we were clearing random bushes, but once we got deeper into it, I started to see how much it was  affecting  the environment. The privet was crowding out other plants and making it hard for anything else to grow. In the pictures, you can see how thick the piles got after we cut everything down. There are branches stacked on top of each other, forming these huge piles that will eventually be burned. It was...

Today was our first day out at the Fort Worth Nature Center, and honestly it already felt different from anything I have done so far. Even just driving there felt like we were heading out into the middle of nowhere. Once we got there, everything slowed down. No buildings, no noise, just trees, dirt, and open space. After we got briefed on what we were doing, we headed out to our site. Our job was to clear out bamboo,  cutting  and  dragging  the stems into piles. At  first  it did not seem that hard, but after doing it for about two hours in the heat, it definitely caught up to me. The bamboo itself was thicker than I expected, with long hollow stems and thin leaves that spread out in clusters. In the pictures, you can see the piles we made, especially the large clump of green bamboo branches stacked together. It was satisfying to actually see the difference we made in  the space .   What I started noticing while working was everything around...