Kylie's Nature Blog

 During Thanksgiving break, I had the opportunity to return to my hometown of San Marino, California. I have lived in this small suburb of Los Angeles (only 12,000 people and 4 sq miles) for my whole life. Although I was eager to leave my small town for college, I will always miss my beautiful and unique California backyard. My parents told me that, when an arborist analyzed it, they noted eight unique fruit trees. Although I cannot recall them all, I decided to take a nature walk in my backyard during break to inspect the different trees I could find and notice how they have changed throughout the seasons and years. Unfortunately, many of the trees are not producing fruit in the winter. Before our house was built in the 1940s, the land was an orange orchard. I believe this is what made the grounds so suitable for a variety of different trees to thrive. As you walk towards the back of my yard, there lies our largest tree: an avocado tree. When in season, the straggly branches create co

 For Thanksgiving break this year, my family and I traveled to my grandparents' house in Scottsdale, Arizona. I have been to their house dozens of times over the years, but participating in this course has made me more aware of the environment there than I had been in the past. I have some not-so-fond memories of playing in my grandparents' backyard and getting poked by handfuls of cactus spikes. I whined, tears streaming down my face, as my grandfather ripped them out with tweezers one by one. My first impressions of Arizona were grim, to say the least. The Arizona weather this year certainly did not feel festive for the holiday season. The weather was in the 60s in the morning, but hit the high 70s and even low 80s in the afternoon. I brought some sweaters, but did not even end up wearing them.  The night before Thanksgiving, we all went out for dinner at our favorite restaurant in Arizona: Tonto in Cave Creek. We were sat outside, per out request, at a table near the golf co

In this entry, Mary Oliver recounts her encounters with stones of all different hues, shapes, and sizes. She also ponders upon the history of the stones, noting how long they have been in their locations for and how they came to be. Many stones are quite resistant to change, traveling for thousands of year through different terrains and environments. For example, Oliver talks about how pink stones were part of a mountain before they were taken by a glacier, and how sedimental stones attain what floated down the outwash. Each stone has its own story, which I believe is similar to humans. Although stones appear simple at first, I believe focusing on their characteristics tells us a narrative of the history of our planet. No two stones are the exact same, just as no two stones have undergone the exact same conditions. I have made a connection between stones and humans. Each human has overcome adversity in different ways and has a different story to tell that has shaped them over time, jus

 As I embarked on four total flights during Thanksgiving break (Dallas to Long Beach, Long Beach to Phoenix, Phoenix to Long Beach, and Long Beach to Dallas), I found "Night Flight" to be a fitting poem that resonated with my frequent flying experiences. In this passage, Mary Oliver focuses on the views observed while aboard a flight in the darkness. As we embark on flights, we often dissociate from our current reality and become hypnotized from views among the high altitudes. By the end of the flight, however, we must reconnect with our surroundings and return to Earth's embrace as we land. While we depart on a flight, "we see how much of earth still lies in wilderness, till terminals occur like miracles to civilize the paralyzing dark". Flights appear to be the only place that we can experience this perspective. Any other form of transportation - car, train, bike, foot - cannot expose you to such places of utter wilderness. These locations on Earth are free of

 This particular poem intrigued me due to the possible attraction to death that Mary Oliver describes. As humans, we often think of death as something dark, a process so foreign that we do not fully understand how it works until we undergo it ourselves. However, Oliver spins a different perspective on this inevitable human demise--she calls it the "glamour of death". Instead of seeing death as a painful affair, she opens our eyes to the connection we could possibly feel with nature. To be one with nature, "to be the green grass!--or maybe the pink rose, or the blue iris" would be a wonderful experience that only some people are fortunate enough to know.  This poem reminds me of Edward Abbey's statements regarding his opinions on death. He always explained how dying in the depths of nature is a privilege and something that he was quite jealous of. If he read this poem, I assume that he would agree with its positive ideas of becoming one with nature. Oliver goes o

 Since my nursing friends and I have completed our lengthy clinicals for the semester that we usually have on Wednesdays and Fridays, we found ourselves with excessive free time this Wednesday. We are not used to having an entire day with nothing to do, especially as busy nursing students. One of my friends devised an amazing idea for us to spend our time--going for a walk along the Trinity River in Fort Worth and "geocaching". Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity where you utilize the Geocaching app to search for containers, called geocaches, which are hidden outside in nature. The caches are often difficult to find, which provokes the geocacher to spend copious amounts of time outside searching for them. They come in all different sizes, and are hidden in places like under fake rocks, in a glass jar, or inside a telephone pole for instance. This app is a creative way to stay active, bond with friends, and explore the outdoors. As my friends and I ventured on our w