A lot has changed since I last sat here. For one, the gate to the garden now says University of Richmond on it. Maybe the university is taking pride in this little garden? Secondly, I can identify a fair few of the tree around me. Though I think it’s a little funny that I’m sitting under a non-native species, a Mimosa, at the University garden full of local plants and produce. I still hear insects and birds making there music, but the birds are different and fewer, and honestly a lot more interesting. The squirrel activity is certainly high. There are more crickets as well, and just night-time sounding insects in general, but that may be because I’m writing this in late afternoon instead of late morning. Even so, I think the change in sound and even the change in light isn’t simply due to the time of day. It’s definitely full fall. Scarf, sweatshirt, jeans and all.
This time there are actually people I can see and the golf course. And I can hear running water, though I’m not sure where from. The combination of those two is a bit unnerving, considering all I now know about the non-point source pollution from the golf course and University in general wreaking havoc on our Little Westhampton Creek watershed. Still, it’s nice to see people enjoying the outdoors. Even if it’s the heavily humanized golf course.
I took a walk around the inner sanctum of the garden this time. I didn’t last time because someone was working there. But this time it’s just me here. And those golfers I guess….but they’re far away. I can’t decide whether the garden makes me happy or sad. There are some area that are clearly more cared for than others. Some plots have carefully separated rows with clearly tended plants, little to know weeds. Others are overrun to the point that I can hardly discern what crop was once supposed to grow there. Some of the plants, both in the cared for section and the neglected section are clearly ready to harvest. Although the cared for section has more, more tomatoes and what I think might be eggplant, the neglected sections still have some too. I love that. Nature works without humans, but sometimes works even better with a little tlc. It’s inspiring. I’d like to have a garden here.
My perspective hasn’t changed all that much with my grown knowledge on nature. Maybe because there’s still so much I don’t know, my I’m not used to applying my knowledge yet. But I feel the same way about this garden that I did two months ago–that it’s a work of art made possible by the collaboration of civilization and nature. But I guess in a way it’s kind of like a zoo. The are some people very against caging animals for people’s entertainment, or even education. Even to if they are captive for their own protection, some people think its a disruption of natural selection. Gardens are similar, in that they essentially exploit the bounty of nature. But humans are nature too right?
Besides, studying geography, ecology, and the environment in a class room, or even a park, is kind of like studying animals at the zoo. It’s an observer affected setting. Also, why would you study nature if not to eventually affect some kind of change, whether it is to grow a garden, improve sustainability in a community, or save an endangered species? Our existence in and of itself is incredibly impactful , because humans are, for all intents and purposes, an invasive species. Which I believe most environmentalists consider bad. So then…..what are we doing?