12 October 2008

8 October 2008: Horse Chestnut



Rose Dickson

8 October 2008

1215 – 1240 hours

Outside Collins Science Building on Willamette University campus, Salem, OR, USA

56 degrees, scattered clouds

Walking to class casually this Wednesday afternoon Tory and I discuss our field journals. What could we write about to change up the static observations about the Millstream? Monotonous posts we have read what seems an infinite number of times. We want something exciting, a change. In the middle of our conversation we were shockingly interrupted. A chestnut nearly took Tory out! This “so called” asset to the Willamette University campus just about injured a student! This is the kind of excitement we were looking for. I am surprisingly thankful for this occurrence; I sit for awhile to observe this threatening tree. A Horse Chestnut TreeAesculus hippocastanum, This tree aggressively drops chestnuts on students all day long ! A process that seems to me completely random, no selection for its target, just an unfortunate passerby like my friend Tory. This is yet another example of how the environment displays itself to humanity. A simple way for people to remember that we cannot control or predict all of our surroundings. Nature provides us with exciting unknowable experiences everyone has the choice and opportunity to explore. If you choose not explore, watch out, nature may just smack you over the head with them.

 

Photos courtesy of:

http://www.trainingreference.co.uk/free_pictures/gallery_3/horse_chestnut.jpg

http://mirror-us-ga1.gallery.hd.org/_exhibits/leaves/_more2006/_more08/Horse-Chestnut-conker-closeup-23-DHD.jpg

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