Journey in Place: Steps for Befriending a Special Place

 

Rue Anemone and Violet on a Spring day

This post is my response to the week #3 exercises from Janisse Ray's "Journey in Place" course. You can follow her (and join in!) on her Trackless Wild Substack. This week Janisse asks us to write a linear poem listing ways to bond with a place. Here's mine.

Steps for Befriending a Special Place:

• Walk its boundaries--its hills and valleys
• Follow its streams
• Hug some trees. Put your nose against the bark and breathe in deep
• Look at maps and then make your own
• Sit very still and watch a squirrel or deer as it feeds
• Walk every trail
• Lie on your back and look up at the treetops
• Keep a bird list
• Learn the history of the place
• Find a cozy picnic spot and enjoy your lunch as you sit and appreciate the view
• Visit at dawn and dusk
• Create your own names for points of interest--Snaky Elm, Fox Cove, Kingfisher Island, Hepatica Hill, Bloodroot Trail
• Pick a location and monitor the changes weekly, monthly, or through the seasons
• Put your toes in the water of a stream
• Touch the mucky mud. Take a handful and smell it
• Close your eyes and listen for 5 minutes
• Taste some dirt
• Identify the plants and trees
• Look for fish and frogs in its waters
• Record changes through the seasons--flowers, insects, bird and animal populations
• Make a photo album
• Look for insects. Carry a bug jar so you can catch and look closely. Let them go when you're done
• Visit in the heat of summer and on a frosty morning
• Look for animal nests and dens
• Record the temperature at different locations on the same day
• Walk in the rain
• Explore the topography and know where the water goes
• Try to walk up to a turtle without scaring it into the water
• Take a long piece of string and make a circle on the ground. Record everything you see in the circle. Use a magnifying lens and do a deep dive
• Visit in the evening and watch the fireflies come out
• Roll some logs and see what's living under them. Roll the logs back when you're done
• Look for spores on the underside of fern leaves
• Learn some frog calls and go out at night for a frog listening party
• Compare the soil from the hilltops with the soil from down in the valleys
• Hunt for fungus. Turn over mushrooms to look for pores or gills. Make a spore print on some paper. Touch some jelly fungus
• Note invasive species--remove if possible, or if the property is not your own, join groups doing invasive removal projects
• Find a rotting log. Break off a fistful of decaying material and roll it in your hand. Smell the sweet fresh smell of new soil
• Clean up trash
• Take a friend on a guided tour
• Sit in your special place and feel the warmth of the sun and the breeze on your skin. Breathe deeply and give thanks  

Journey in Place: Frame of Reference

Map at the Park Entrance

As I sit at my desk writing I am a bit distracted by the large flocks of Cedar Waxwings and American Robins that have descended on my yard this cold January morning. They are dropping from their sunny perches in the trees down to our small pond that has abundant flowing water, a scarcity today when the temperatures are barely warming up from the teens of last night. They are also feeding ravenously on the berries of the Chinese Holly and Japanese Privet that line my yard. Like them or not, the large and established (albeit exotic) bushes do provide food and shelter for hungry birds.

In our 2nd Journey In Place exercise, Janisse asked us to put our Place in spatial perspective, identifying the location, bioregion and boundaries, and then decide to whom the study should be dedicated. Then came the toughest part, for me at least--we were asked to sketch a map of our Place. After walking the trails and doing some research, I came up what I think represents the way I view my Place. I wish I had the patience to carefully sketch and print beautiful letters, but that just doesn't seem to be me. I get impatient. Here is my map:

My Map

So, about my place. My place is the Oconee Forest Park, a natural area on the University of Georgia Campus. It is located within the bioregion of the Southern Outer Piedmont of Northeast Georgia and is in the Upper Oconee River Watershed. The park consists of 60 acres of hundred-year-old trees on rolling hills that edge a 15-acre manmade lake. It is bordered by an unused railroad track, tennis courts and band practice fields on the west side, a highway ("The Loop) on the south and east, and College Station Road and the Intramural Fields to the North. It contains two manmade lakes, one large one (Lake Herrick) and a much smaller one (Little Lake Herrick). Lake Herrick is fed by a small stream that catches runoff from the 5 Points neighborhood on the north side, where I live. Water from Little Lake Herrick up above, supplies water to Herrick Creek that runs through a ravine and down into the larger lake below, where Herrick Creek picks up again and flows into the North Oconee River to the northeast. 

Boardwalk on hill leads to Bridge across the lake

Big, beautiful oak on the Lake Trail, by exercise equipment

Intramural Field on a frosty morning

One of the platforms the looks over the lake

Mountain Bike Trail and Power Line Cut

Herrick Creek

Hiking and mountain bike trails wind around the lakes, and through and around the forest. Service roads serve as wider trails and allow access for maintenance equipment. Facilities on site include fishing docks, a boat ramp, picnic areas, and a ropes course. A wooden boardwalk next to ball courts leads to a bridge across a narrow arm of the lake. The area serves as an outdoor classroom for forestry, biology and ecology students, and is popular with runners, walkers, bikers, dog walkers, photographers, artists, and nature lovers, both students and the general community. Oconee forest Park is an ebird hotspot. 

Kingfisher on one of the platforms in the lake

Killdeer Chick in an Intramural Field

Stinkhorn Fungi

Fox

Heron in the Lake on a Misty Morning

Snake Tree

Tree Frogs by Little Lake Herrick

Bloodroot Patch

While preparing to draw my map I looked at existing maps of the area online and discovered that some of the unmarked trails actually have names! I learned that my "comfort spot" is located on "Tranquility trail", which makes perfect sense because it exudes peace and calm. "Tranquility Trail" follows the contour of the hillside and over a ridge to the "Birdsong Loop", another favorite and aptly named trail. On a map, I think the Oconee Forest Park looks kind of like a heart. I like the image of it providing lifeblood to the community through physical and mental health, protected habitat, and its place in the watershed, channeling water to the Upper Oconee River. I picked it as my Place because of its proximity to home, and because it was a lifesaver for me during the Covid pandemic when everything else was closed and I needed a place to breathe and think. It has provide me with endless hours of peaceful contemplation birdsong, and discovery. I would like to dedicate my Journey In Place to the people who had the foresight to create this oasis (one of whom was my friend, Walt Cook--more on him and his role another time), the people who are working currently to maintain and improve it, and to my fellow travelers who share it with me.

This is the Place

This is "My Place"

I just began a year-long online project, "Journey in Place" with author, Janisse Ray. The purpose of the project is for the participants to create connection and relationship with a place-- a yard, a park, a city or a region. As Janisse explains, we have become "placeless people" who have lost our ties to the earth we live on and the natural processes around us. We will be going through weekly exercises designed to help familiarize ourselves with a place, whether it be a yard, a park, or a region, and form deeper connections. (You can sign up too by subscribing to her "Trackless Wild" Substack newsletter.)

Woodsy Trail

I'm excited about this project because "place" has been on my mind for some time now. In fact, I wrote a blog about this nearly 10 years ago when I lived in Florida. ("A Sense of Place"--click here to read) I now live in Georgia, very far from where I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and after 8 years here, I still feel like an outsider. I have not lived in Utah for 35 years, yet, when someone asks where I am from, I always want to say "Utah". My roots are there. But Utah is not my home any more. Many of my people that connected me to the state have died or moved away. The city and region have grown so much that I hardly recognize it. The Great Salt Lake is drying up, which breaks my heart. I don't think I could ever move back because the place has changed and I've changed. But there's still this familiarity and the memories. The mountains. The smell of summer. The hard, dry dirt. It's complicated. I live in Georgia but I'm from Utah.

Wasatch Mountains behind the Salt Lake Valley (Taken through a window--excuse the glare)

I will never be able to match the ancestral yearning that I feel when I look at the Wasatch Mountains that rise behind the Salt Lake valley in another place. But I want to get to know rivers, stone outcrops and red clay where I live now. I want to know about the rainfall and temperature patterns. Is this a hard winter? When is the typical rainy season? I want to know the plant, animal and insect cycles. I want to internalize the history of the land, the geology and the people. I want to grow deep roots. 

A Snail Eating Fungus

Curled Oak Leaves that look like clasped fingers

Cranefly Orchid Leaf--Greenery in Winter

Fungus rings an old log

My 1st task was to pick "my place" that I'll be coming to and getting to know throughout the year. I've read comments from other participants and some chose the land they and their families have lived on for generations, or their yard, or a river gorge. I decided to pick a recreation and nature park on the UGA campus, "Lake Herrick and Oconee Forest Park". It is special to me because it is part of my neighborhood, but also because of what it meant to me during Covid. In the early months of the pandemic, our city, like many others, shut everything down. The university closed and sent the students home, and they closed the State Botanical Garden, which is operated by the university. The City made the decision to close the parks and playgrounds to keep crowds from gathering. In the early weeks of the shut down, Lake Herrick was one of the only nature areas in town that was open to the public, and I walked there most days. In times when it felt like the world was falling to pieces, I found connection, refuge and solace walking through the woods and around the lake. As things eased up a bit, the other parks opened again for walking because we realized how important exercise and nature therapy were for us. People started venturing out again, and the university opened the parking garage next to the lake as a safe, socially distanced practice space for brass and woodwind musicians. I'll never forget the lonely sound of a trombone wafting over the lake as I walked one morning in December. It was a weird and difficult time.

Barred Owl Watching

Bloodroot Patch

Within our "place" we were instructed to find what I'm calling my "comfort spot"--a place that draws me and where I can come back to over and again for contemplation and reflection and close examination. I picked a spot on a hillside overlooking tall trees, with the lake in the distance. On one of my walks near here, I discovered a beautiful patch of white Bloodroot blooming on a quiet trail. It was like a finding a treasure.  Another morning I spotted a Barred owl perched near the Bloodroot trail. A couple of hawks were unhappy that it was there and made a noisy fuss. Nearby I watched as a Brown Creeper moved up and down the trunk of a pine tree, and across the road Pileated Woodpeckers tore chunks off of a log looking for grubs. I visited this spot the other day and saw a pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers. It was the first time I'd seen them in these woods for several years and I took it as a sign that this would be a good choice for my "comfort spot". As we say in Utah, "This is the Place". I look forward to getting to know it better. 

Wintery Steam

Mossy Log in my "Comfort Spot"

Looking through the trees at the lake below

Reflections on the Water

"This is the Place" Monument, Salt Lake City