Morning Walks |
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25 March 2026 - Johns Creek
I've been taking walks (or runs) every morning since getting here. One forgets about all the squirrels. They're everywhere! When I landed in Atlanta last Tuesday it was freezing cold. Nancy said they'd had some snow flurries a few days before. I was prepared for warm weather, but Brenton loaned me a sweatshirt to exercise in. That first morning was crisp and the pine forest behind Ocee Park was brown, dead pine needles and sticks. It's a forest type so familiar as to seem unremarkable despite being so different from that at home in Switzerland. A week later the hot weather has led to an explosion of green. The deciduous trees are covered with buds and small leaves. Everywhere on the forest floor the muscadine vines are coming to life. There is less poison ivy than one would expect though. Probably because this is a suburban trail it has been removed. It's a resilient plant though, and so there are still some leaves. We can only push back Nature a bit here; never truly eradicate it. Much like the cities of the Amazon disappeared after Orellana brought European diseases, so too the forest here quickly swallows what humans have built when they disappear. I grew up in a neighborhood that was farmland before it was abandoned and the forest reclaimed it before it was then developed into a neighborhood. Farmbrook. It only takes a couple generations. The mark we make on the world is fleeting.
