Month: April 2019

Welcome to part 2 of this blog post about my last visit to Haw River State Park. In the last blog post, I discussed the changes I noticed from the previous time I visited, particularly relating to the season change. In this one, I will continue to recount my observations and share new information I learned.

As I continue to walk past the bright new purple tree I had just seen, I notice the sounds, or lack thereof, around me in the area. I only hear my feet touch the dirt beneath me as I step one foot after another. And then I hear a choir of grasshoppers, chirping back and forth as if they are conversing with one another. But every time I crouch down to get closer and locate the choir members, the melodious song stops. And I become disappointed as well as frustrated. Why do they all of a sudden stop? Did I interrupt them? I thought I was pretty subtle about it. I back away in hopes that they will start to sing again and I can attempt to find them once more. No luck. So I continue my journey.

I have visited this place multiple times and have yet to come across any wildlife. Except for the occasional squirrel. It flusters me that I have not seen any animals here. I’m not sure why there are not any animals, but maybe I am just not paying attention enough. As I walk, I hear the squirrels leaping through the woods and racing up the trees. I wonder if they know I am here, walking on their territory, invading their habitat.

I walk and walk, looking up above me to observe the great leaves and then in front of me to see the unique composition of bark on the different trunks, and then looking down at the ground below me. For some reason, the ground fascinated me. It changed from a reddish-brown clay to a muddy mixture of dirt and twigs to a blanket of green leaves covering the dirt underneath. As I trek on, the ground changes color. It is no longer just brown and green. Purple flowers, that I assume are coming from the redbud I mentioned earlier, are scattered along the ground as if they were a breadcrumb trail from Hansel and Gretel. But what does the trail of flowers actually lead to? Certainly not to their home or to a candy cottage. I follow the trail, stumbling upon many different subtle beauties of nature. I notice a patch of grass/moss with heart-shaped leaves, and I stop to reflect to think about love. Love for other people, but also love for nature. I don’t think we take enough time to just stop everything we are doing to reflect and appreciate the little joys around us. Even though the Haw River State Park is only 5 minutes away from my house, I feel like I am on a mini vacation every time I journey over to the park. From this project, I have learned to take more time for myself and make more time for nature.

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In one of my first encounters with the Guilford Woods, I cam across an old dead tree that stood out from the rest. Every time I come back into the woods I visit this tree. Standing here I see how it stands out because it’s surrounded by a bunch of American beech trees.  The trunk of the cedar tree is twice the size of the beech trees.  The bark is slick and multicolored.  It almost looked as if it had been sculpted with clay.  The branches stretch in awkward angles.  I wonder how something so beautiful, could be dead inside. 

 Without any words, I feel a sense of recognition from the tree. Its branches almost extend down and envelop me with a loving embrace.  My problems of not fitting in here seem insignificant.  The tree feels me and I feel it.  I sit down beside its trunk and think. Being Asian American at this campus is just like being a cedar tree in an area full of American beech trees.  I begin to wonder if the tree feels lonely.  Can trees feel lonely?  My Native American Religion class would say yes.  I sit and listen.  I wonder what the tree looks like on the inside. How could it be dead and stand so tall and beautifully?  I stand up and take a step back to see the whole tree.  As I stare it is like I am looking in a mirror, seeing my own reflection looking back at me.  I think maybe it died of loneliness here.  Grappling with the idea of leaving the college, I wonder if the tree would have left if it could. 

I never thought that I could or would ever have such an emotional connection to a tree. Then I found this tree. It spoke right to me. The longer I was in its presence the more I felt like we were connected. Somehow I think it understands me in a way that others can’t. I wonder if my other Asian American friends back home ever found something so grounding in their life. I know that other people feel the way that I do but just suffer in silence. Everyone faces loneliness. Even this tree.

Walking I remember how my therapist always suggested to walk in the woods to clear my mind.  Apparently nature can help mitigate my feelings of depression.  I go back and forth about believing him.  Sometimes it is nice to be in a space where I am free of my obligations, free of the voices in my head. Here I can just listen.  While sitting down on a fallen sycamore tree, I listen to the rhythm of my heart beating in my chest as it slows to the pace of my breath.  I can hear the wind whistle as it passes through the trees and its leaves.  I can hear the birds calls to each other as they bounce off the trees and echo in the air.  I hear the grey squirrels scurrying along the ground, hopping over the roots of the trees looking for acorns.  The most distinct noise as I sit here is the hairy woodpecker.  It attempts to hollow out a part of an oak tree. The banging of its beak reverberates around me.  I try to find its red cap, white belly and black and white stripped wings.  I have no such luck.  Through the reverberations of the woodpecker, I can hear the song of the hooded warbler.  I look up trying to located its distinct vibrant yellow colored belly and head with black everywhere else.  I thought the yellow might stand out in all the brown of the trees. I have no such luck.

Sometimes being in the woods can be overwhelming like a wave is crashing down on me, and pushing me to the sandy bottom of the ocean.  My mind races and thinks of all the sadness in the world.  Am I doing enough?  As I keep walking, I again come across the huge Tulip tree. I remember this tree.  It is large and rich in history.  It is here that I feel a wave about to crash. It is here that marks a part of what was the underground railroad.  When I learned about the underground railroad it always felt so far away from where I was in elementary school.  The 1800s felt like eons ago, but now I see how it only just occurred.  I used to think that everyone was equal. Growing up I was hit with the realities of the world.  The fight for equality is not over.  Systemic racism is embedded into our society and we keep growing around it instead of flushing it out.  It is like a tree when it grows around the pollution that we leave. I once saw an image of a bike way up high in the trunk of a tree.  The tree consumed the middle of the bike leaving the ends hanging out.  The tree thought that it could prosper but the bike only hindered it.  Racism is hindering our society from succeeding and we are complacent.  As I keep walking I see an eastern box turtle roaming.  It moves slowly past me flashing its beautifully electric orangish yellow and brown shell.  I watch as it begins to eat some grass.  I smile at how calm it is as it lollygags through the woods at its own pace.  It has no worry about pollution or racism.  It is only present here in the Guilford woods as it eats.  I take a breath and let my mind settle before I continue on my way.

Hello and welcome back to the blog! I took one last trip to Haw River State Park and wanted to reflect on it a little bit and share with y’all.

I’ve become more and more familiar with this park with each time that I come to visit and explore. Yet, I still am fascinated by the subtle beauty of the place every time I visit. And somehow, I always find something new that catches my eye or I learn something new about the land. This time was no different.

The previous times I have traveled the arduous 2.3 miles from my house to the park, the weather has been mostly unpleasant: cold and sometimes even rainy. Also, I always visited bright and early in the morning. I decided to switch it up for my last trip. I visited close to sunset, close to park closing rather than park opening (8 PM vs. 8 AM). Also, it just so happens that the weather changed from a chilly and dead winter to a warm and alive spring.

With spring in full swing, the Haw River State Park had more visitors and I was no longer the sole explorer of the terrain. It was a pleasant sunny evening while I was there, but a group of middle schoolers (I’m guessing they were in middle school) also decided it was a good day for a field trip. Although they were quite audible at the beginning of my trek, once I traveled further along the Piedmont Loop Trail, I felt like I was in my own secluded world again.

I begin to walk down the trail, begin to focus on my surroundings, begin to forget about everything else. As I walk, all I see around me are trees upon trees upon trees, like a sea of green has engulfed me. Then, all of a sudden, I notice a pop of color. A bright purple tree (which I later found out is a redbud, I think) sticks out like a sore (but beautiful) thumb amongst the sea of brown trunks and green leaves. It was nice to finally view some new and unique trees, aside from the typical oaks and pines I had seen from my previous trips. I was not expecting to see anything quite like this on the trail, so I was very surprised and ecstatic to observe the colorful side of nature.

I walked up closer to the purple tree to get a closer look and take a photo of the magnificent tree. Then I heard a faint “buzz” sound. I started to look closer and closer when I finally realized the noise was coming from a group of bees crowding around the tree. I began to play a game of hide and seek with the insects, trying to find them crouched behind the individual flowers. Attempting to capture a photo of them with my zoomed-in camera was a strenuous task, and I realized I should not always be trying to capture the perfect moment on my phone. It’s impossible. Nature is not there to be my photogenic model. I don’t think you can see the bee in the photo I got. And if you can, it’s really blurry. So enjoy my good photography skills:)

This is just one of the many lessons I have learned throughout this project. In the next blog post, I will continue my journey around the park, sharing more information I learned and more reflections.

Toodles!

As I am walking to enter the woods a slight breeze ruffles the few leaves left on the trees.  I look up and make eye contact with piercing yellow eyes.  They continue to stare into my dark brown ones.  It’s a coopers hawk.  The curve of its beak comes to a sharp point at the tip.  I look down hoping that it doesn’t do anything or come any closer.  When I glance back up there it is, still looking straight at me. All of a sudden it opens its large wings and shows the pretty brown and white speckled feathers on its back.  I jump back.  Once I realize it was just stretching and wasn’t going to hurt me, I take a deep breath and slowly let it out.  Focusing on the rise and fall of my breath, I take a step back and keep backing up.  I wish I had the confidence of being able to stand so secure to stare down a possible threat.  I wipe the sweat from my brow and continue on.

I have never been so close to such a large hawk. I can see its beautiful feathers that cover its body. It sits perched on a soccer goal looking down at everyone that runs past it. At first, I didn’t know that it was a coopers hawk. I just thought that it was simply a hawk. I snapped a picture and kept walking to get to the woods. When I got home I looked it up. Looking at more images on the internet, I was able to see its beauty up close.

I wonder what life is like for the hawk. How does it feels to live so close to humans? I wonder if it has a family across the sidewalk in the woods? I wonder if it is scared of me as much as I am of it. I don’t think it is considering how strong it stands peering down at me.

In the Fall of 2018, I realized that photographs of mushrooms weren’t good enough. With the help of the print-making professor, we designed an independent study to log mushroom species of the Guilford woods. Within my first month, I had already identified nearly forty distinct species of mushrooms, lichens, and slime molds. As opposed to spring-fruiting mushrooms, these fall species have significantly less time above ground and are dependent on rainfall and humidity. Below is a list of common names and scientific names of different species found within the single month of September.

• Jellied False Coral or Tremellodendron pallidum
• Lilac Bolete or Boletus separans (grows near oak)
• Firesite Funnel or Faeberia carbonaria (grows on burnt wood)
• Ornate Bolete or Retiboletus ornatipes (grows near hardwoods)
• Dog Stinkhorn or Mutinus elegans
• Cinnabar Red Chanterelle or Cantharellus cinnabarinus
• Oyster or Pleurotus ostreatus (grows on hardwood)
• Puffball or Lycoperdon curtisii
• Hygrophorous Milky or Lactarius hygrophoroides (grows near oaks)
• Quilted Green Russula or Russula parvovirescens
• Golden Spindles or Clavulinopsis fusiformis
• Carnival Candy Slime Mold or Arcyria denudata
• Coker’s Amanita or Amanita cokeri
• Shining Waxcap or Gloioxanthomyces nitida
• Black-Footed Marasmius or Tetrapyrgos nigripes (growing on black walnut)
• Indigo Milk Cap or Lactarius indigo
• Bleeding Bonnet or Mycena sanguinolenta
• Violet Gray Bolete or Tylopilus plumbeoviolaceus
• Cobalt Crust Fungus or Terana caerulea
• Red Pinwheel or Marasmius plicatulus
• Gemmed/Jewelled Amanita or Amanita gemmata
• Inky Cap or Coprinopsis atramentaria
• Dog Vomit Slime Mold or Fuligo septica
• Silver Leaf Fungus or Chondrostereum purpureum
• Beefsteak Fungus or Fistulina hepatica
• Fairy Fingers or Clavaria vermicularis
• Old Man of the Woods or Strobilomyces strobilaceus

Every shade of the rainbow was represented from the leaky red Bleeding Bonnet all the way to the deep purples in the Violet Gray Bolete. The majority of these species are dependent on tree species and some will only grow on certain kinds of wood (Firesite Funnels only grow on burnt wood and Boletes and Milkcaps tend to grow near and around hardwoods only). Through documentation, patterns began appearing, with large populations found in the Highlands and Rope Treeland (to the left/West of the creek) during this time of year. I began to notice how the sense of smell could help me locate and identify certain species (the only reason I found the Dog Stinkhorn was by getting a whiff of its putrid aroma). Though some are simply too small to eat, about 15 or more of the listed species are considered edible, with only 2 or 3 being certainly poisonous (definitely Coker’s Amanita and the Gemmed Amanita). One of the most interesting species was an abundant one, the Inky Caps, are edible with caution. They contain a toxin that interferes with the body’s ability to metabolize alcohol, so it is advised to not drink alcohol for up to 5 days after consumption.  **NO MUSHROOMS WERE CONSUMED DURING THE DOCUMENTATION PROCESS** (EVERY MUSHROOM SHOULD BE TREATED AS POISONOUS UNTIL PROPERLY IDENTIFIED)

The first time I ever travelled to Morrow Mountain was in the fall of 2017 with Guilford College’s Outdoors Club during a weekend camping expedition. We pitched our tents in one of the “primitive” camping lots, gathered firewood for the approaching evening, and settled in with some music and dinner preparations. I believe the first night we had tacos; food always tastes so good when you’re camping. It was such a beautiful space for forming friendships and community, as I often find camping trips to be. You’re all dirty, sweaty, and tired, but eager to chat, sing, play games, share stories and meals, and soak in the natural world as much as you can. That first evening we curated a roaring fire in the pit and watched it burn down to embers over a game of cards that lasted a pleasant forever. We eventually retired to our tents and I distinctly remember wishing I could stay up to watch the stars slowly trace their way across the sky. Going to areas like this while being from, and currently residing in areas filled with such drastic light pollution really reminds you how beautiful the untouched, untainted sky is.

The next day, we were eager to explore. Being in nature, purely in nature for the sake of being there, is like being a child. The wonder and euphoria that is felt while being able to freely explore, being able to wander all day, being able to run and jump and hop and skip, being able to sit and listen and be still, being able to take a nap in the grass, being able to discover the most profound stillness and the most mind-boggling movement all in one place consistently toes the boundary between the realm of secular existence and the realm of the divine. Nature seems to be magical at any age, especially while traversing a new path. And so, we hiked. Making our way down the (very accessible and obviously human-made) path, we quickly approached Badin Lake. So beautiful, as blue as the sky above, and so tantalizingly inviting that all of us came to the consensus that we could not, in fact, understand the strange scribbles on the old sign that said “no swimming.” The fifteen or so of us peeled off our now sticky with sweat outerwear and tiptoed into the cool, now-fall-temperature water. The shore was littered with smooth pebbles and bits of branches that had been quietly reaching their broken arms out to ground themselves in the sand from within the small waves that were now lapping at our feet. I remember the tickle of the cool water spreading from the soles of my feet to the top of my head, sending a slight shiver to my spine. It was pure bliss. The sun was out, we were playing games in the water as though we were swimming, we were making new friends, we were falling in love. We fell hard for the world around us and for those who wanted to enjoy it with us, and for the memories that our secret, short-lived dip in Badin Lake allowed us to harbor.

Upon returning, quite recently, to Morrow Mountain and the Uwharrie area, I embarked on a hike, hand in hand with one of the folks who had accompanied me and the rest of our club on the first trip to the area. It seemed only natural. Of course, I returned this time with the intent to study, to learn, and although I did so, I think that I noticed a lot more what intentionality can contribute to a visit to, or existence within nature. As we made our journey up the path, and after having visited the small natural history museum at the foot of the trail, I began to notice things that I think, otherwise, I wouldn’t have. Small buds were just barely forming at the tips of branches, marking the earliest whispers of Spring in the air. Skinks making a rustle in the otherwise quiet leaf-covered forest floor, challenging me to find them with careful discernment between its back and the leaf it stands on, motionless. And then, the most profound occurrence: I saw snow. There was snow everywhere. I was shocked; there was snow on the ground on a sixty-degree March day in North Carolina. Sunlight gently sifts through the leaf-budded branches of the trees that tower above me, almost scraping the clear blue sky with their early morning stretch. I continue walking, fascinated by this phenomenon, as the soft beams of sunlight guide my gaze to the next patch of white among decaying leaves from the previous fall. I look down and watch carefully as I realize how heavily my own two feet are treading uphill over white deposits scattered generously along the path. With a closer look at what sits in front of and underneath my feet, I conclude that in fact this is not snow, but rather quartz emerging from the packed dirt of the hiking trail. Somewhat disappointed that the mystery of springtime-snow had been solved, I carried on with a smile, yet again remembering the feelings of wonder, curiosity, and even epiphany that the natural world offers to us; remembering the feeling of childhood fantasy.

Thank you for joining me on this short journey through my understanding of nature, my discovery of some of the Uwharrie National Forest, and wishing me well on the rest of my adventures. Of course, my blog is nowhere near comprehensive; not only did I not have a chance to cover everything I planned on covering (especially the hauntings and spooks of the mountains, which there are a lot of in the Uwharrie area, especially Bigfoot lore), but I didn’t even come close to covering the entirety of the story! Regardless, thanks for sticking it out during our time together. Now, take a hike!

Okay, faithful reader, I know that our journey is intended to focus on one place, and one place only, but my last post sparked in me some important memories from my childhood wherein I felt the most connected with nature, on top of the world, and free to eat whatever I could reach.

Last night, as I was on the phone with my Mother, asking her if she had any good photos of our family farm, our chickens, or our veggie garden and its bounty, I came across some memories that I had forgotten. Shocking to me, I had no thoughts about the apple orchard when I was choosing what place I wanted to focus on; this was especially surprising considering we have gone apple picking as a family since I was about 2. Last year, my sophomore year of college, was the first year I was unable to go.

So, in light of these memories, I wanted to do some reflection on what it was like to grow up in a major metropolitan area, yet still spend so much of my youth eating hand-picked, farm fresh, homegrown foods, whether that meant they were coming from my backyard or someone else’s, before my next (and final) post, which is my final reflection on the Uwharrie project I have undertaken. Essentially, I wanted you to know a little bit more of my personal history and connection to the natural world before I sign off of this particular blog forever.

These trips to the apple orchard happened once every fall, usually in late September or early October since my Mom’s favorite type of apples are at their peak during that time of the season. Our favorite orchard, once a small, family owned operation with hardly any notoriety, is now a popular weekend vacation destination for families from all over the Southeast U.S..

The way we usually went about our visits was to first, take a photo with the wooden scarecrow height board, so I could see “How tall this fall” I was. Then, we would choose the perfect pumpkin to be our jack-o-lantern for the upcoming Halloween festivities, and then, it was onto the vast expanse of the orchard itself. I remember as a small child, the rolling hills of apple trees and footpaths seemed undeniably endless; the apple trees and their fruit were as vast and as plentiful as the ocean on the opposite side of North Carolina’s borders. I was continually and blissfully awestruck.

We would spend the entire, beautiful early fall day wandering, exploring, rolling down hills, and eating our hearts desire of apples along the way. Of course, we filled our baskets to the brim along the way, much of the apples later going toward apple pies at Thanksgiving, or home-made, home-jarred applesauce that stewed all day long and made our little house smell how a warm blanket feels on a cool morning. Nonetheless, they were all enjoyed in their own right, eventually.

Ultimately, this practice has spoiled me. I can hardly stomach a slightly mealy tomato, or an apple that is too soft to really crunch into, or salsa that isn’t home-made and jarred in our tiny kitchen. However, this lifestyle, although highly privileged and inaccessible to many city-dwellers, has made me so much more of the world around me and how we interact with it.

I understand first hand the amount of sweat, blood, tears, and more sweat that it takes to harvest a small batch of veggies, and so can only faintly fathom the physical and emotional toll that 14 hours of underpaid harvesting work may take on those who are contracted to harvest commercial produce. I understand the joy of fresh, delicious, clean, untampered-with food, and therefore can scarcely imagine what it may be like to live a life wherein neither I nor my family has access to fresh produce, let alone farm-to-table, organic, freshly harvested produce at that.

I think that my exposure to spaces that combined the natural world and the human one so seamlessly and respectfully, especially from a very young age, has really cultivated my experiences of the natural world outside of farms and orchards and other food-producing spaces. I believe that this exposure has also foregrounded my curiosity for what the natural world holds sans-humans, harvests, and sometimes even hostility.

It is likely, in my opinion, that this element of my upbringing has led me to be the person I am today – someone who cares about the environment, and the people working in it; someone who enjoys spending time outside; someone who wants to continue cultivating that sense of childlike wonder and infinite smallness for as long as I can, which means doing whatever work I can to save our earth from the seemingly inevitable climate-death.

My exploration of the Guilford Woods started with a mild sense of disorientation and a much stronger sense of anticipation. Learning about the species within the Guilford Woods taught me the importance of respecting the land and its unique features. Spending time around the Eastern red cedar inspired me to keep coming back, even for short periods of time, to visit and see what was happening in this part of campus.

I believe that the most meaningful way that we can respect the trees and the natural world is by taking the time to understand the tales they have to tell. Even simply looking downwards, the patchwork of littered leaves, twigs, and moss that serve as the forest floor tell a story of their own. Through the identities of the leaves, we learn their names. The lobed oak leaves and elliptical beech leaves introduce themselves as long-term residents, the rocks along the ground hold stories of erosion and movement, and the scattered pine needles speak of the times when they used touched the sky. Not all is peaceful in the world, however. The plants also hold stories of invasion and loss. English ivy, Hedera helix L., tells a story of conquest and threat in which this nonnative intruder compromised native plants and species. Peace, love, war, longing—I may simply be ascribing human emotions to the plants, or we might be failing to recognize the universality of these experiences outside of the human bubble.  These entities may not speak our language but we must to make sure their voices are heard and their homes protected.

As I stand here in the woods, a small piece in the larger puzzle of the universe, I hear the signature trisyllabic whistle of the Carolina wren and the sounds of an Eastern gray squirrel scurrying back to warmth. I cannot even imagine how many more birds, insects, and other creatures must come out from hiding in the warmer seasons. It felt as if every being in the woods was seeking shelter from the cold, going into their places of warmth and refuge. Ironically enough, the same place that sustained them kept me shivering at intervals when the cold bursts of wind briefly blew through, and the Sun hid behind his blanket of clouds. While the animals might have been retreating into their homes and places of comfort, being outside in the woods was where I found my own. For a period of time, I failed to connect with my surroundings in a meaningful way. Moving from Michigan to North Carolina meant a drastic shift not only in terms of distance but also in terms of climate and other natural features. I lost my sense of place and my connection to the history and stories of the land, part of the reason why the Guilford Woods resonates with me. It bears the stories of several groups of people that were displaced from their homes and traveled through to their freedom and a place of safety.

I didn’t walk into this experience expecting the different plants and animals to teach me about myself. Somewhere in all the technical terms and sensory experiences, I found my own sense of peace and sense of place. I bonded with the native species that surrounded me, found myself sympathizing with the “invaders” that simply multiplied for the sake of survival. I learned that it’s okay to not know all the answers and trust that eventually you’ll find your way. Guilford College has been nothing more than a campus to me over these past few years but closely observing its distinctive characteristics allowed me to associate with the place as a whole and think of it as home.

The past semester has encouraged me to explore and learn about my home away from home. I hope my journey helped you all learn more about this beautiful place as well!