Chinese Privets be gone!

 Today, our class went to the Fort Worth Nature Reserve to help with minimizing the spread of the invasive species, privets. I sadly did not see the bison probably because I was driving and get distracted a lot when I drive but I want to come back another time for sure!
Thinking of Texas even without bias since I have grown up here, thoughts of trees, lush forests, rivers, paddle boarding, and animals do not come to mind! I have always been used to either dry weather or city life in Texas. My parents love national parks and hiking, so growing up, we have always taken road trips to explore nature in other states. We have a thule with a car sticker from every national park we have been to because it is their goal to make it to all of them. If I am being totally honest, as a child I was not the most enthusiastic nature lover(sorry Edward Abbey). I would sometimes pretend to sleep in the car to not have to go out for another family picture. I blame it on inertia and my laziness, but my favorite part of family trips has always been the time spent together rather than the hours on trails and taking pictures on yet another unique and cool tree or rock. As I have grown up, I have come to appreciate nature a lot more and hiking/going on walks has become a favorite past time of mine. I much prefer solely hiking and immersing myself in the peace of the hike rather than stopping for pictures at every turn. It has been really cool to explore the other aspects of Texas, especially Fort Worth like the nature reserve and the lakes I have never really taken a lot of time to appreciate.
I did not really know what to expect driving up since I was unsure of what we were doing even while walking down the path. I was definitely excited and also hoping that I would be able to be helpful. The ladies that worked there were extremely kind and dressed a lot like Professor Williams. They gave us some tools and sent us off to tackle down some privets that seemed to stretch endlessly.
After an hour + of chopping down some privets I can confidently say I could recognize privets on any trail. I felt like every time I looked up more and more appeared. On the more positive side, they did make me realize that not all invasive species are gross weeds and found the privets to be a beautiful plant. I found the hour outside therapeutic. I had fun working with everyone in the class and got to know a couple of people better. I believe nature is great at bringing everyone together. Sometimes it takes an activity to break the awkward silence and crack a smile from a friend. I find the classroom setting to be intimidating and difficult to speak up and share ideas in. It is much easier to be natural and relaxed while doing an activity than solely focusing on conversation and making a comment about a class discussion. After being drenched in sweat and kneeling on a cactus, I was not even upset. I definitely credit that to the serotonin/endorphin boost from being outside. The cactus did hurt and I did have to pull some needles out of my knee later in the day but overall, I had a great time and am really glad I took this course! I also really loved how satisfying it was to clip the tree to the ground. It was definitely a nice bonus to the long drive to the nature reserve.