Blog Post 1

Tuesday, September 4

For my first nature journal entry, I will share about my outdoor experience this weekend at our family farm and how our previous class period affected my observation of nature in a new way. When my Dad was little, my grandparents bought about 200 acres of land in the middle of the Ozark Mountains in northwest Arkansas. Since then, Big Piney, as the property is called after the creek that runs through it, has become a special place where my family and friends can get away from the world. This year, my Dad bought 30 more acres of adjoining land and built a second cabin, which he amusingly calls “Pineycello,” as if it were of such architectural beauty as Thomas Jefferson’s home. Due to my working in Fort Worth this summer, I was the only family member who had not yet seen the new cabin, so I joined him for a day trip to the farm.

While we were there, we drove down to the creek to cool off. I had not been to Big Piney in months, and I hadn’t been during the summer in a couple years, and so I was used to the water holding the minty-green hue of winter and snow melt. The water on Sunday, however, was brown and made cloudy by an excess of algae. These dirt-slime particles covered every rock and accumulated at the edge of the creek. We used to have cows at Big Piney, so I always knew the water was not best for drinking, but I did not remember it if had always been quite like this. I did not even have to ask why it was so dirty or if it was unusual because my Dad had strong feelings about the subject. He saw me noticing the debris settle on my feet and said, “You know why it’s like this? Chickens.” He went on to explain that it was all from the chicken farmers, or “factories” more like, that operated upstream. Runoff, or even deliberate dumping, containing chicken waste, chemicals, and other pollutants from the factories had caused the bacteria levels in the water to exceed normal volumes. The factories deposit more bacteria and waste in the creek than it can process under the best of circumstances, but in the summer months the water is at its lowest level and so the creek becomes even dirtier. One of my favorite things about Big Piney is how special it is that we get such beautiful nature almost to ourselves, and this knowledge from my Dad made me so sad that this place we loved was polluted.  It was a stark reminder to me that much of what we think is “untouched” by man is actually much more affected than we know. 

The experience brought me back to our last class period in which we watched Leonardo DiCaprio’s documentary, Before the Flood. Both circumstances struck me in that I realized just how much I do not know about environmental issues. I was aware that the rainforests were being cut down and fossil fuels were bad, but I had no idea that it is the present economic advantages that make environmental damage acceptable to many of our policy makers. I also had no idea that chicken farms were upstream of the creek. Mass production is cheap in the twenty-first century, and it makes up the basis of many business plans. And so, chicken factories pollute Big Piney Creek. I now believe that if these factories must exist, they simply should not be allowed to be built too close to rivers. Nowadays it is hard to find water that is not contaminated like this. It feels easy to allow waste into water because it feels like the water moves it away and takes care of it. But as I now have seen firsthand, and in a place that I care about, this behavior has far reaching effects. 

The documentary in class was powerful and eye opening, and then seeing the effects of bad environmental practices in my little ‘neck of the woods’ made even more of an impression on me. Once I knew about the factories, I felt like I was seeing a whole new creek. And here I was thinking I was fixing it all with the recycling can I bought for my house. It is an overwhelmingly discouraging state the world is in if you think about it for too long. Big Piney still has its natural wonders to me, but I am letting this experience serve as my awakening to not only the global climate change issue, but to environmental concerns at the local level as well. I am sure this issue cannot be solved quickly or with little force, but the best way I can help out is to do what I can to better my own community.