Nature Walk: the Houston Arboretum

 

Houston is a funny city. It has its issues; in fact, like any major city, it has significant problems. However, one thing it has that I have always appreciated is that it has remained a remarkably green city, in terms of green space.

There are the bayous, Memorial Park, Hermann Park, and myriad smaller parks throughout the vast area that is the United States’ fourth largest city. When I was little kid and well into my twenties, there was more greenery than we have now (I’m pretty sure, though despite part of this being my subjective perception, I’ve seen large amounts of acreage paved over, excavated and built on). A mainstay has been the aforementioned Memorial Park and the Arboretum found within.

I’ve taken quite a few photos over the years and typically pop one or two up on Facebook, but I think maybe now would be a good time to post some here. I’m not in the mood for politics or history or anything terribly weighty right now. In the aftermath of January 6 and President Biden’s inauguration, I am rather enjoying not paying attention to incessant news or the issues of the moment.

Here. Take a stroll through nature with me.

There are plenty of fallen trees and some conjure up visions of the discarded carcasses of antediluvian behemoths. 

The South Pond and Prairie welcome you to rest and contemplate the water's stillness, the interlocked life cycles of flora and fauna. 

This area is now less desolate. Houston was recovering from drought a few years ago. That took its toll on much of the forest. Then Hurricane Harvey came and wreaked havoc on vegetation and soil. You still see areas of the arboretum and Memorial Park on the mend. 

This is typically where I begin coming into the Arboretum. There are several entry routes, but this is my favorite.

I am patently crap at identifying plants, but following are some random photos of flora my eyes were drawn to.

Just a reminder: click or double-click on any image to see it full-size and generate a slide-show.

As we continue our stroll, it pays to look up from the trail now and again.

There is nothing quite like the sky over a Texas prairie.

Naturally, we find other things when we gaze upward.

Plus, this fellow:

              

Aside from egrets and red-wings, there are vultures, cardinals, and too many song birds to list. I keep promising myself that I'll spend more time with a camera one of these days capturing more of our fine feathered friends.

In the meantime, returning to our stroll, I'll take us on the way out.

First, one more pass by the pond.

You see many benches on which to light which are dedicated to the memories of various people. This one caught my eye and while I knew it wasn't Russia's poet, I knew it referred to a beloved figure in Houston radio. 

There are other memorials, as well, throughout the arboretum. The most meaningful might well be Emmott Circle, dedicated to Catharine Mary Emmott who advocated for establishing the Memorial Park in honor "of the soldiers who trained at Camp Logan, the WWI army training base on which Memorial Park now sits." As much as the idea went back to the earlier part of the last century, it was Catharine Mary Emmott's push that brought the forces together to develop the park. The Memorial Park Conservancy's website has a terrific timeline of the Park's history.

Emmott Circle is a contemplative place to sit. It seems designed for performance and audience or perhaps teaching and class or prayer and congregation. I find it a restful place to perch.

As we continue back to Bottle Brush Trail, we pass another pond. This is more of a marsh/wetlands area, a great place for birding and critter watching.

Our water snake friend is also a movie star: 

Spending time in nature or as close to it as you can get in an urban environment, is critically important. We live so far from the processes that birthed us that we no longer recognize the organic, the wild. We eradicate weeds because we deem them "unsightly", little realizing how important they are to the lifecycle of the environment in which they're found (we also call them "wildflowers" when they're not in our lawns). We call some of the most valuable arthropods "pests" and kill them with little or no concern for their being, even though they've been on this planet far longer than us and have their places. Unfortunately, we don't appreciate this world, this dimension of the living world around us. 

Thankfully, even in our cities, we have places to go to engage in something that might remind us of our place in the biosphere. We can stroll along trails and take rest along a pond or among the woods. We can drink in the quiet, the silence from words ceasing, and hear more clearly the murmurs and calls of the forest.

This entry is a collection of snapshots from a number of such restorative periods. May it provide you with refreshment.