Closing Eyes, Seeing More

Every day I walk by the lake. I notice it more than most- a function of my elite training as a member of Earth Lodge and a love of the outdoors developed over my first nineteen years. I notice its level by the exposed bank on a hole of the disc golf course, I see it as more than an opportunity for a snapchat story, and I sometimes pick up trash when I see it. However, all of these observations focus on sight. It’s easy to see the lake, and slightly different to “see” it, just as hearing differs from listening. I want to move in the spectrum from hearing, past listening, and toward understanding by focusing on other senses besides sight. As Frank Herbert says in his novel Dune, “If you rely only on your eyes, your other senses weaken”. To that end, I decided to write my reflection during the night. The light of my laptop, conspiring with me, helps to completely blind me to the sights of the riparian zone surrounding the beech against which I lean. I’m going to close my laptop, close my eyes, and open my senses. Here goes.

Cicadas rule the airwaves. Occasionally, a bird will chirp as it scatters dry leaves. More rarely, an acorn will fall into the lake, a distraction from the white noise of insects. More insipid is the static of cars racing by. People could see me here, if they looked. They don’t. The tree against my back reminds me of Oregon, when we *a fish splashes in the lake behind me*all took 20 minutes alone to reflect at the bottom of a trail in the HJA . Then, I had trouble appreciating the forest because I expected something magical, something unnatural, but what I saw was wholly natural. Now, I have the opposite problem. I’m trying to isolate the natural of this place, and all I can focus on is the cars going by, the light from the bridge the people walking by, the laptop’s fan, the phone in my pocket. I guess I didn’t learn that much from William Cronon after all.

I’m trying not to be disappointed. I couldn’t help but hope for an Eragon-like awareness of the forest, where I was suddenly flooded by all the consciousness around me. But this isn’t Ellesméra, and I’m not a rider. I’ll just have to keep on returning, noticing a little more every time.

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The Lake Comes to Life – a Reflection

On the day prior to the GeoJames exam, I decided to take a break from the library to lay in the hammocks. The environment of the library can be a bit overwhelming: the sound of clicking on multiple keyboards, the collective exasperated sighs of overly-stressed students. Stressed out by the environment, I decided to leave my belongings in the library, phone and all, and take a walk around the lake and towards the hammocks. As I swing in the bright orange hammock next to the lake, I take in everything around me. The sky was cloudy and gray, and the trees across the lake look somber. The geese and ducks were quietly resting close to the hammocks. Though it was a nice, quiet study break, everything seemed to take on a monochrome color scheme.

Lying in hammock

Writing in the hammock as I observe my surroundings

Hammock Pano

Panorama of my perspective+boy fishing in the background

Now I’ve returned to the spot a couple weeks later on a Sunday afternoon and everything seemed much more alive. The sun was out, giving a richer color to everything and reflecting on the ripples of the water created by the calming wind. The trees look more diverse in color as we get deeper into the fall. I observed people making use of the lake. Across from me, there is a boy fishing, trying to throw the line as far as possible into the lake.  Next to me, there is a father and a little girl laughing and playing in the broken hammock. Families huddled in the gazebo to throw bread at the ducks. Many dog owners and joggers ran on the trail and on the bridges around the lake. Even the geese around me were out and about: some made loud screeching noises while others peacefully swam around the lake. I smile at my surroundings, glad to have found such a great place to reflect and collect my mind. Though I had to leave, I am glad to have found a spot to escape the stressful environment of the library.

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Whitewater Kayaking Adventure (RiverRat)

As I locked my helmet in place and zipped up my PFD and wetsuit, I looked ahead and saw my coworkers, Zach and Natalie, sliding down the stairs in their kayaks and plunging into the James, barely able to contain their excitement to get in the water. I smiled at their energy and my thoughts wandered off…

Whitewater Kayak Picture

Picture taken after much struggle to get our kayaks to stay in one direction

As we drove over to Pony Pastures, I noticed multiple signs that said  “Save Reedy Creek”. I had no idea that this many people were affected by the Reedy Creek project. I’ve never seen a collective group of houses stand up for such a cause.  Also, every time I go out to the James, my appreciation for the river grows. Having clean river areas  accessible to the public to enjoy is great, but it made me think back to the Cronan article on how people  are disillusioned by clean areas of nature when the reality is that the James needs as much help as it can get. As a class, we learned about the true state of the James through events such as the tire pick up at the James and trash pick-up at Dutch Gap. As for the majority of the public, people are not as well-informed as they should be.

After the OAR team saddled up to head into the water, the instructor discussed the hydrology of the James River, showing us what to avoid and what to do in certain situations. We practiced maneuvering out of our flipped-over canoes and submerged into the 60 degree water. After going over the formalities and instructions,  we finally started to paddle towards the rapid areas. Personally, I am not the biggest fan of flatwater kayaking, and I was excited to see how different flatwater kayaking to whitewater kayaking.  As we started paddling, I noticed that the boats are extremely sensitive to the wind and flow of the water because they constantly had a tendency to spin around. Combatting the spinning of the kayaks took a lot of energy, so I would lean back on my seat out of exhaustion. As I leaned back, I noticed the clear blue sky. Many trees on both sides of the James River had hues of red and orange, indicating that fall is finally here. I noticed the cranes and tricerageese perched on rocks and roaming around small islands along the river, peacefully enjoying the river as we are ourselves. Thankfully, there was nothing out of place at the James, so there was nothing to report in the RiverRat Patrol form. As we paddled down the final section of the river with aching arms, I felt centered and at peace in nature, enjoying everything around me with all my senses, forever thankful for the river and forever proud to be a River Rat.

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Free Reedy (Creek)

Instead of being sound asleep in a warm comfy bed at 8am on a Thursday morning, 2 weeks ago, we were cooped up in a University van, on our way to Reedy Creek.   As we got closer and closer to our final destination, we came across signs upon signs promoting the stopping of the Reedy Creek Restoration. In fact, numerous front yards even hosted 3 or 4 of these signs, as if taunting the officials involved in restoring the Creek to come talk to them and hear what they have to say. The community seemed to be aware of how detrimental this restoration effort could be to their local creek.

One of the many signs we passed on the way

One of the many signs we passed on the way

Through the Reedy Creek Restoration, the local government plans to “repair and improve 2200 feet of the creek, restoring the original creek bed while reducing stream bank erosion and nutrient pollution…resulting in a cleaner James River and Chesapeake Bay.” However, as Bill Shanabruch mentioned during our excursion, this plan is unnecessary, as it fails to address the root of the problem—high volumes of sediment-filled stormwater runoff flowing downstream. On top of that, trees will be cut down, park property and historic sites will be destroyed, and tax payer dollars will be wasted on a project that is hard to maintain overtime. It is essentially a lose-lose situation, or, as Parr states, “the Reedy Creek “Restoration” seems to be nothing more than a government project to just “check off the box” and say they did something beneficial, without actually looking into the details.

Bill Shanabruch in Reedy Creek

Bill Shanabruch in Reedy Creek

Nevertheless, I was extremely impressed by how successful the Reedy Creek Coalition was in spreading word about the restoration. In fact, they were actually the most successful organization in terms of spreading information about a community-involving situation that I have ever seen, as almost every house we passed seemed to have at least one of the “Reedy Creek Stream “Restoration”” signs. As Dr. Forsyth wrote about in his Awareness-Appraisal model, if one is not even aware of something such as the presence of a local stream or river, or, in this case, the presence of a potential restoration effort to a local creek, it is impossible to appraise the situation and then take necessary actions to fight the restoration efforts. In this sense, Reedy Creek Coalition is on the right path to potentially overturning the restoration project.

Reedy Creek

Reedy Creek

 

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Lying in a hammock

I walked along the path surrounding the lake, avoiding the geese droppings but purposefully steeping on the leaves to hear their satisfying crunch noise. I was on a mission to find a good reflection spot. However, as I neared the area in front of Lakeview, I came across the hammocks, unoccupied, swaying in the wind and inviting me in the sit down and relax. It was time for a break anyways.

The crunchy leaves!

The crunchy leaves!

I sit down and take in my surroundings. It was a great day—sunny, 75 degrees, a little breezy but not enough to mess up your hair. I might as well reflect here. A squirrel scurried up the loblolly pine to my right while a leaf headed straight for my face from the left. The ducks swam the lake, some with their heads above water while others were diving under with their feet breaking the surface. The geese crowd the banks, looking for any scrap of food they could find. Feathers dot the ground among the leaves, flying away with even the slightest gust of wind.

The view from my reflection spot

The view from my reflection spot

The view from my reflection spot (pt.2)

The view from my reflection spot (pt.2)

I lie down. The sides of the hammock cocoon me and form a barrier to all the tasks I should be doing but have neglected to do so. Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly with black spots, fluttering like a leaf in wind. I close my eyes. I can feel the rays of sunlight seeping through the swaying canopy of sweet gums and loblolly pines and onto my face. I hear a dog in the distance—and the owner trying to calm it down. Suddenly there is the thunder of sneakers hitting the asphalt, as a group of runners breeze by, but then there’s silence. Cronan’s ideas of wilderness come to mind—this is an escape, I am in the sublime in my own backyard. However, my thought process is broken by the roar of a car engine coming from behind my head, reminding me that while I may only be facing the serenity of the lake, there is a whole world going on around me.

Trees!

Trees!

I continue to lay there with my eyes closed. The occasional pang of the bat hitting the ball can be heard from the baseball field while a few quacks can be heard from the lake. However, overall, everything seemed calm and carefree from my position in the hammock.

Triceragoose let out a loud yelp pulling me out of my thoughts. As I grudgingly lift myself out of the hammock—my comfy piece of heaven—I welcome myself back into the real world, full of lists of things to accomplish with a lack of time to actually accomplish them. The sublime is gone. However, I hope to be back in that state sometime soon.

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The Tire-full James

There I was, standing waist deep in the James River, 1½ hours away from campus in Howardsville.

The river was about 3½ feet deep with the current strong, but I did have one hand on a fallen branch to hold myself steady against the current. Besides, I was not alone—five other canoes and a batteau were cruising down the River for the same purpose as well.

There I was, standing on a truck tire on the river bottom, still clinging tight to its steel rim.

I was trying to work the toe of my right foot down through a slot in the rim. I figured if I could do that, I could maybe lift it up with my foot just high enough to reach down and grab it with my hand and pull it up. Then, maybe Monica could reach it and we could dunk it under together to get rid of the heaps of clumpy silt molded to the tire’s insides like clay. That way, we could drag it to the bank, hoist it up, and heave it into our canoe, perching it somewhat precariously on top of the five other barnacle-lined tires we found in the last 15 feet of the River.

So it goes during The Annual Tireless James River Cleanup.

The trip was not what I was expecting at all. I was not expecting to see, in the midst of the sycamores, river birches, and white oak lining the banks, a carpet of tires lining the bottom of the James River right after canoeing down Goolsby’s Rapids. I was not expecting to be fully submerged under the clear yet somewhat murky waters of the James to retrieve a tire that I can’t even successfully retrieve because it weighs too much. And finally, I was not expecting to use eight people to pick up one enormous tire the size of a fully grown person .

Goolsby's Rapids.

Goolsby’s Rapids.

A big tire.

A big tire.

It was all for the best though, as it was a very successful and enjoyable cleanup, with the entire group of us retrieving more than 50 tires together and canoeing six miles down the River. I only write this now to say, the next time you ponder tossing a tire into a nearby river, think of me.

Standing waist deep in the James River trying to retrieve it with my feet.

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Brown Island- the Perfect Blend of the Natural and the Urban (Reflection Spot)

Sometimes when I got off work at the RedCross chapter early, I’ll swing by Brown Island to get my outdoor fix. I might grab some coffee and listen to some tunes on a bench, just slowly admiring the pristine flow of the James River. It is quite impressive that there can be a quaint piece of nature like the Brown Island tucked away in the urban heart of Richmond. It promotes recreational activities and for people to get out. You can always find several others walking their dog and/or going for a running. However, deep down, the Brown Island isn’t really a true piece of frontier as portrayed by Cronan. It is an artificial island manipulated for the enjoyment of the urban dwellers such as myself. There is little life in the Brown Island and the water is relatively shallow and slow moving. The area is littered with several structures that detract from its natural presence. It is contained and the grass is flat. I can imagine a lot of sediment and toxic run-off that comes by due to the large hill and proximity to the city. After hearing this, I realized how the Brown Island got its name.

I took that!

And that!

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I took that!

Yet, I don’t want this blog post to simply be a criticism of the Brown Island. It is still one of my favorite spots and definitely offers a different sight to the cityscape of Richmond. As McKenzie states in her blog, people are always in a rush and/or always have something else on their mind. Thus, having this little piece of outdoors is a great way to break that habit and offer a much needed escape. The Brown Island is a central hub of Richmond and hosts many different events and activities such as the Richmond Marathon and the Folk Festival. Its true purpose isn’t to be a pristine piece of nature, but as we discussed in class, a backyard gateway to further appreciation for the outdoors.

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The bridge that connects the Brown Island

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The Anthem 8k finishes at Brown Island

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Save Reedy Creek

“Save Reedy Creek!” Andrew or Parr yells out once again in class after Todd mentions it. I don’t particularly know much about Reedy Creek, much less why we have to save it. It seems like more of a “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there” sort of thing anyway.

Reedy creek

One of the yard signs we saw on the way there.

I get to that bridge at 8am on a thursday morning while eating yogurt out of coffee mug riding along in a university van. Barely keeping my eyes open, we pass house after house with yard signs stating “Reedy Creek “Restoration”” with a big red X through the words. Obviously people are invested in their Reedy Creek, but I still don’t know why.

We jump out of the vans at the end of a cul de sac and find Rachel, Andrew, and a man who introduces himself as Bill Shanabruch. Bill has on a nifty tree identification tshirt and leads us on a jaunt through the woods to a beautiful clearing containing part of the infamous Reedy Creek.

Bill starts a passionate rant about how the local government has the money to put a concrete channel into Reedy Creek that will fix some short term issues, but create more long term ones with erosion, sediment displacement, wildlife, etc. The government thinks that if they have the money to do it, then it should happen. There have been many city council meetings where advocates for Reedy Creek have talked about the detrimental effects that the “restoration” will cause. The response was essentially, “just trust us.” For an environmentally conscious populus, it isn’t quite that simple. There is a lack of data collected on the restoration site, the restoration will destroy park property and the tree canopy, and there will be a permanent loss of historical resources. Additionally, projects similar to this one have seen poor maintenance after the project is completed. We should focus on the root (fun pun) causes of stream degradation first to stop the problem rather than temporarily fixing the result.

On a different note, Bill talked a bit about the upcoming election; all but one of the candidates for city council are against the restoration. I registered to vote in Virginia, so I’m pretty stoked to exercise my right to vote for one of those candidates and do my part to help Save Reedy Creek.

reedy creek1

The current condition of Reedy Creek in all of its splendor

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Learning and Living Reedy Creek

As we drove longer the signs became more and more frequent. If one was to plot out the location of each sign on a map, you could clearly see where we were headed. Right in the middle of the map, with the most signs of all, was Reedy Creek.

One of the many signs we saw.

One of the many signs we saw.

Of all the trips we have taken, I think this one really used what we have learned about geography and watersheds and applied it to the real world. As Bill Shanabruch passionately rambled on, I realized he was talking about everything we discussed in class naturally. He talked about riparian buffers, hard stream banks, erosion and more. By the end of his talk I was sure he was going to tell us the hydrologic unit code for Reedy Creek, because he touched on everything else have discussed.  Throughout this course I have sometimes felt lost about what we were learning, but on this trip it all clicked together and made sense.

Recent News Article

Recent News Article

Using the concepts of scale and connectivity, Bill Shanabruch explained to us all the negative impacts the proposed restoration will have. He said how this project will not actually solve the problem. The issue comes at a larger scale of high volume of storm water runoff. It doesn’t make sense to treat the symptoms when you could just fix the source. Not only will this project have not one positive impact, but it will most definitely negatively impact the stream. Thousands of trees will be cut down, 1.3 million tax payer dollars will be wasted and possible archeological sites will be disturbed. The construction also proposes the creation of a concrete channel, of which we have learned all the horrors of removing natural banks in our class readings which are outlined in my previous synthetic post.  For me, this Reedy Creek “Restoration” seems to be nothing more than a government project to just “check off the box” and say they did something beneficial, without actually looking into the details.

Bill Shanabruch

Bill Shanabruch

As Quinn explains in her blog,   “creating community matters” for just about everything in life. It is the community that got together and formed the Reedy Creek Coalition to take a better look at this project. It is the  neighborhood community that is uniting to take better care of their own backyard. We are a living learning community, all students from different backgrounds who are united by this class we take together. I hope that we will be more like Bill Shanabruch, and use what we have all learned together to help a real world issue.

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HANDS ON GREATER RICHMOND REVOLUTIONIZE A BUTTERFLY GARDEN

As I take a quick glance of the school yard, I cannot help contain my excitement about going out there and turning it into a productive piece of Holton’s environment. For a moment, my mind shifts to my previous years in Kenya when after coming home for school breaks, my mother would enlist family labor by allotting my siblings and me a neglected piece of our yard to tend to. This would definitely involve a lot of mulching,

Weeding a small-scale corn farm back home

Weeding a small-scale corn farm back home

invasive species removal, weeding using pretty antiquated tools and ploughing, most of the time under the scorching tropical sun. However, regardless of how daunting the process seemed, the best part was always after completion when one would stand a few feet from the allocated piece, scan the new scenery and celebrate the fact that the transformed land could now be put into better use.

Holton ES will be celebrating its annual Harvest Festival in a few weeks, an event that provides funding for the school. I am so excited to be part of those helping Holton make this day a success by creating a conducive environment for the thousands of guests who will attend the festival this year. I have been specifically allocated to help weed the butterfly garden- a project that was founded by Balzer and Associates, Inc. in a bid to create for the students an outdoor classroom and learning gardens.  The outdoor

The butterfly classroom and butterfly garden at Linwood Holton ES

The butterfly classroom and butterfly garden at Linwood Holton ES. Around the classroom are water jars to collect rain water

classroom resembles a butterfly with a roof designed to collect rain water. Next to the classroom, a garden resembling a butterfly sits playing not only an invaluable role of a rain garden but also a study site where different tree species thrive. Though in a small capacity, I notice the school’s effort to keep the James River watershed sustainable.

We all  have trouble finding the edges of the butterfly garden. The weeds have grown so high that at some point am entirely covered by the malicious weeds. It is evident that the young trees in the garden struggle to keep up with stiff competition posed by the weeds. But with more effort we find the edges which help us to work our way around the entire butterfly garden. The scorching sun is not easily discernible as we all engage in meaningful conversations while working our way through the garden. At once I realize how the activity had brought us together from complete strangers to Richmond residents who share a similar passion for the environment.

After collectively putting in 120 hours of hard work, we leave the butterfly garden as a study site that every student at Holton would relish. We cannot help imagine the look on

The new look of the butterfly garden at Holton ES

The new look of the butterfly garden at Holton ES

the students’ faces when they see the transformed garden the following week. However, our greatest hope is that the festival will help generate more funds that will continue to make Holton ES a place of academic and environmental stewardship.

 

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