Journal, Oct 24 - Our Last Day making a Lasting Impact [Fort Worth Nature Center]

Journal, Oct 24 - Our Last Day making a Lasting Impact [Fort Worth Nature Center]

            By Tuesday, October 24^th, my honors class Treks and Texts had volunteered about 4 times at the Fort Worth Nature Center.  The 24^th was set to be the last day, and it happened to be quite an interesting one.  The recent rainy weather carried through the week into Tuesday afternoon, giving us grey skies and wet pavement.  The spontaneous weather almost ‘rained on our parade’, pun intended, but we made the decision to head to the reserve anyways.  Some rain wouldn’t stop us from ending our project on a good note!

            We would have to take care, though.  Our professor and the Nature Center staff spoke to the class in the Nature Center office about safety in the rain.  Today, we would be working on bamboo mostly, and in the rainy and muddy forest floor, slipping and falling on a bit of bamboo might cause an unpleasant injury.  However, we all came mostly prepared with rain gear and shoes, and we took the safety consideration quite seriously.

            This final day of work had us grab cutters from the garage/storage area, and we grabbed our tools, determined through the drizzle of rain to make a great impact in clearing the forest of bamboo.

            Admittedly, this was my first time working with the bamboo.  I had held some of it before when on the ‘woodchipping’ team rather than the ‘cutting’ team, but simply putting a branch into the woodchipper was a different experience than actually cutting and lugging the thing across the forest.  The section of forest we worked on was populated by plenty of bamboo, and I started on the leftmost side.  There was a large patch of bamboo that had been cut down, and it began to pile up.  I was glad to have brought a clipper/shear because I know a saw would have taken lots of effort.  The bamboo was strong and now I understand why it is considered a type of wood.  Close up, I could see the smooth cylindrical shape of the plant, and if it was a little smaller, I bet it could make a nice flute (and I’ve seen bamboo flutes in movies before).  Dealing with bamboo came in two forms: putting the clipper at the base of the bamboo and squeezing the handles to cleanly chop it, and simply pushing and pulling at the older and browner bamboo to knock it down because it was weaker at its foundation. 

At the time, for me it was hard to tell if our class was making a difference.  We simply were cutting down bamboo and putting it on the ground, with the woodchipper nowhere in sight.  It was a rainy day and there was a lot of bamboo collected, so I suppose it would be hard to bring that big machine out.

Cutting bamboo sometimes took a lot of muscle to do, because bamboo was not a soft material at all.  Occasional briar and branches dangling from trees distracted me a bit as well.  However, the greatest struggle of the day by far was the cluttered forest floor.  It was already dense with greenery, and having stacks of bamboo lying around really made it hard to walk without tripping.  Sometimes, the collection of bamboo acted like a fence or wall, making it nigh impenetrable and forcing me to retreat and find a different path to navigate the forest.  I went deeper into the forest at one point, finding a small tipi-sized area surrounded by trees that had a lot of bamboo.  Two hard workers were busy cutting and downing the pillars of bamboo, and I helped out by cutting and putting bamboo flatter on the ground (some had begun to lean against trees, which could then poke one’s eyes).  I found myself becoming a bit claustrophobic by the smaller area so I moved to a different location.

                                        

             Near the end of our time cutting bamboo, I went into the central and mostly open area in the section of forest we were working on.  There was a lot of bamboo cleared and stacked on the side.  I learned from the strategy of another classmate to (carefully) throw the bamboo like a spear so that they could stack neatly in a further away pile, rather than creep closer to our feet and trip us.  Today’s work took a lot of hand and arm strength and endurance, not to mention leg strength to navigate the dense and cluttered forest floor.  It was nice at least to not see as much privet and briar, although the bamboo and assorted sticks and plants noticeably took the place of it. 

            At the end, we all took a group photo and reflected on the great work we had done.  The Nature Center staff were very happy with our efforts here.  I remember them saying one time that our hard work was even more than the work some environmental and biology majors did in the past.  The message of this quote was that we didn’t need to have a specific major or knowledge to help out at this place, we just needed to care about what we were doing and give it our all!  I’m very proud of our honors class because we truly care about service and engaging with the community and the world.  As we headed back on the truck, I remember two things.  The first thing was the sight of the forest, with many plants cleared, which made the place look cleaner and healthier as an ecosystem.  With our hard work in the last 5 visits, we made a visible impact, and I loved seeing that.  The second thing I saw was some deer in the forest.  Those deer reminded me that the clearing of privet and briar and bamboo was for more than just tourist appreciation, but for the wildlife that frequents the forest.  It was not easy work that we did, but it literally made a difference, and that makes me feel more grateful for the nature we have and the nature that we must preserve.