English 380 Spring 2004--Sample Journal pages April 1-13

Katie Brong

Thursday, April 1st 2004 – At the Architecture Unit
As the sun gleams in my eyes and it fades away behind the ridgeline ahead, the sounds of nature seem to change. No longer the same birds, but as dusk sets in, other creatures sound. Wild Turkey’s gobble, crickets chirp, flies and bees buzz by. The creek bed in front of me, all dried up, perhaps is a seasonal drainage way and apart of the San Luis Obispo Creek Watershed; a drainage that only flows during the heaviest flash flood type of rainstorms. As I sit out amongst the architecture “playground”, it seems that only some belong and fit in with the natural landscape. Mans presence on the land has two distinct faces; it either compliments and blends in, or harshly sticks out.
Now, turning my attention to another element of the landscape in front of me, I notice the vegetation. After taking several plant identification and physiology characteristic classes, I profoundly notice the difference between the native and non-native plants. As we walked the trial along Brizziolari Creek, I looked out to the road and noticed something profound. It seemed that there were many more invasive, alien plants along the roadside than on the trail. The plants along the trail seemed to be more of the native vegetation such as oaks, bay, sycamores, lupine, coyote bush, fuchsia flowering gooseberry, and monkey flower. Those plants on the road front: tobacco, fennel, and poison oak. These invasive species have a tendency to take over if given the right environment and climate. This is a topic that concerns me due to the numerous problematic factors associated with these foreign plants.

Shannon Jamison

As I sit here after the readings, looking at the sunset, I realize how beautifully simple everything is. Everything has its purpose, whether it is the trees giving home to the birds, or the grass giving home to crickets and spider-webs. The webs are what amaze me most of all. How you can’t even see them till the sun hits it just right. They are everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time. As the crickets and the wild turkey sounds serenade me, I look to my left and see another architectural creation. It reminds me of something out of a Star Wars movie, and makes me think, was it supposed to be that way? Was it supposed to remind people of that very thing? I plant my feet firmly on the ground as the cool breeze starts to come in, and for the first time, sitting here, not noticing anything else, I discover true beauty. I feel the true beauty. I also feel somewhat of an intruder, and hope that nature accepts me and allows me to come back. I think about the readings, and how they relate to present life. The nymph was right on when she talked about how beauty fades, and material things can go away, and only then if you still love me is it true. Does that not apply to everyday life? And especially in college where you try to meet that one person you never want to let go of? How do you make them stay? What do you have to offer that no one else could give? True love perhaps? I look at the dome and see a stage. Do performances take place here? If so, what kind? I could see poetry readings, or small medieval era plays. It reminds me of Shakespeare in Love. Then I see the dome again, and I wonder who put that on top of such a great setting? Was it designed to accentuate all the wonderful things around it?
April 9th, 2004
Sitting and waiting for my next educational class, I begin to daydram about
when I was a young boy. I was born and raised on a farm, with four hundred
open acres as my backyard playground, and nature at its best, right outside the
doorstep. I remember being the best tree climber, scaling up the limbs like a
chameleon, trying to fit right in with those trees. There was this one
enormous oak tree that I couldn't stay away from. The lazy-boy branches and
the dampening shade, made it my prime resting place. I would climb all over
that magnificent tree, finding the bluejay's nest with freshly hatched
younglings. I remember not to touch them, as then the mother won't care for
them anymore. Their crying screams, has me swing down the branches, dig a hole
in the rich fertile soil, and pull out a few long squirmy worms. I climb back
up, hold the worms up, their heads shoot up and necks extend like a small
giraffe. I lower my hand, and the younglings gulp it down like it was
nothing. Then the mother returned, so I ventured off up the tree. As I look
to the sky scraping branches with the strain in my neck from tilting my head, I
see these nests that I could have laid in when I was a child. The great
conqueror of the sky, the redtail hawk circles down to it's nest with a young
rabbit grasped tightly in its claws. Before I knew it, the sun was going down,
and I had to leave my Utopia to answer my mother's call for dinner.
Eric Ott

April 8, 2004
The cool breeze blows from the north, increasing at times to be faintly audible over the sounds of crickets in the distance. In front of me lies a mass of earth, thrust up in contorted angles, from years of tectonic action. The angles of the hills are monumental, yet seem on the verge of sliding due to the high angle of repose. The vantage point I have is one I have never experienced before. To see the scale of the University from this distance, as the bell tower tolls, reminds me of the grandeur of the natural environment.
Yousman

April 11, 2004
How great would it be to live the life of a beef cow? Now when I say cow I mean cow and especially not a steer. The cows here at Poly live in on of the most beautiful places on earth. They only have one job. All they have to do is bear a calf every year, and it is all right if they don't succeed in do this year in and year out. The other 364 days of the year they get to eat, drink and sleep; at least three of the top four things we all wish that we were doing. Cows always have enough food in their "cupboards" and if they don't, they don't sweat it because there is always someone in charge of bringing them more. Another great thing about being a cow is definitely travel. When they happen to graze off a field they get to take field trips to other places. Quite often other ranches far away. Keep in mind also that cows can't get arrested for trespassing and there is no such thing as indecent exposure bovine law. Another extremely important fact that I have to remind you of is, that cows never have to buy gum. They can just chew their cud instead. Cows are great because they have built in flyswatters. Their tails naturally flip this way and that fighting flys as quick as they come. What's great about being a cow is that it is ok to be fat. In fact skinny cows are looked down upon. Boy I wish I could be a cow today. Instead I am stuck here in a room filled with artifical air.

Gabe Felipe

Above Calpoly, the land is steep, with short wiry annual grasses, like fox tails and wild oats, that prick at your ankles and lodge in your sandals. Set sparsely on the hillside are large burled Live oaks, which look like the sole survivors from some older age, when the grass was not so harsh. Beneath these withered sentinels are the shallow flat beds of the Herfords that now graze these lands. It is their bodies that have rested here by the oak roots where the ground squirrels once nested. It is their mouths that have chomped the at the grass until it turned harsh to the land. Now the Russian thistle peers above the grass, the first sign of still harsher times to come. The balance of nature here is not yet tilted, but it teeters.

Robert Lynds

Boat Ride
Today after class I went with my friend Lindsey to look at a boat she was interested in buying. Never in my wildest dreams would I’ve ever thought I would write a journal entry about this. This is why I am though. The fellow who was trying to sell his boat lived in a beautiful place that I would have never known existed. Go North on 101 over the grade then once you get over pull into the first turn out and take a left be careful for traffic its highway 101! The road is called Tassajara Canyon Rd. It is the adjacent canyon to Cal Poly. To my surprise we quickly found ourselves in a wonderful place, a canyon that was bright green from the recent spring rains. I could tell it was recovering from a horrible fire but it still maintained its beauty. Deer were feeding on the grasses and momentarily stopped to look at us like visitors. Many people lived back in this canyon and this surprised me because some of the houses were out of this world in that it was obvious that wealthy folks owned them. We drove further down the road passing a dozen gates guarding resident’s driveways. Finally after about 5 minutes of driving 15 mph the road changed from asphalt to dirt. Of course Lindsey complained because she didn’t want to get her clean car dirty. Heaven forbid! We came across a couple of houses sitting parallel on either side of the road. I had noticed the roads were muddy and knowing we hadn’t had rain in a while led me to believe the creek beyond the bush was running due to a spring up above. Sure enough once I opened the car door I could hear it talking. The man who was selling his boat turned out to be a good guy. We looked at the boat and the girl’s girlfriend seemed more interested in selling the boat then he did. Loving the place I was at, I started asking questions about it. I first started talking about the fires. He said the fires ripped through the canyon in 95 taking virtually everything in its path. Even his house, it has been rebuilt since then. He told me his girlfriend shot her first buck just up the road and wild turkey meander up above. Then he said he had some wild trout living in the creek. I’ve always heard about San Luis Steelhead but I have always laughed with about it with disbelief. Being a fisherman my ears perked and I began to ask more questions. I wanted to ask more questions to gain more knowledge not to go fishing but to know that the steelhead really do exist in this these tiny spring fed streams. More for piece of mind really. That’s what a real fisherman feels, he loves what he does so much that never wants to see the day where he can’t enjoy his favorite recreational activity. He never wants to be caught with nothing but memories. He doesn’t want tell his son or grandson about his memories and pictures he wants to bring him along and share those experience in a first person situation. So the fellow and I grabbed a old folders can filled with fish food and walked up the road 50 yards. Around the bend there was a big water hole fed by a corrugated drainage pipe under the road due to a switchback. I grabbed the food and tossed some in. Sure enough a mess of fish came up form the depths of the rocks and mosses to grab their feast. They ranges anywhere from 10 to 16 inches. They attacked the dog food looking pellets. The wild instinct took over and they satisfy their hunger. They rose on the water with a ripple on the surface as the only indication they were there. They used the same type of instinct as a great white would on a seal. The same type of instinct? I guess? The main thought running through my head at the time was having that type of wild instinct on the end of my fly rod. Feeling that much energy from a creature of relatively small size can be a thrill bar none. With luck he doesn’t snap the line. Bring up from the depth of the holes of the river and gingerly take the hook out of his mouth and release him back to the wild and let him go back home under a rock. He’ll breath a little bit, catch his breathe and think about it.

Ryan Bianchi

Michael Papa
8 April 2004
Each time you visit Nature; your visit is being dictated by the factors that lead you out that day. One day you could be required to take a hike for a laboratory exercise to see the difference that slope and aspect have on vegetation. During that hike, the focus will be on vegetation, slope, and aspect. Needless to say the surrounding wildlife will be ignored. Perhaps you go for a hike with a person who is an expert on Poaceae, the grass family. Obviously, the hike’s focus will on the ground up to only the knees. The towering Eucalyptus and Sycamore only pale in comparison. Finally, a hike with an entomologist renders you partially blind in one eye because you were looking though a hand lens for six hours, and even if you wanted to enjoy the sight of souring hawks as they gloat on invisible waves of air, you can only appreciate their beauty half as much as you could have only six short hours ago. A person with the sole goal to go out and experience Mother Nature will not be able to experience all of Nature. The holistic experience is jaded by the bias. As a forester, we are probably the guiltiest of this bias. Trees, timber, lumber. That is Forestry in a nutshell…to most people. Through science, one can be trained to experience everything out in nature through an observation process. But stating focused on that process usually takes the beauty of Nature away in a blink of an eye. The struggle forthwith is to concentrate though the process while still experiencing the beauty. A yin to the yang.