How to See the Trees for the Forest

After twenty years of walking through Glover Archbold, I feel like I'm seeing the park with fresh eyes during the slow daily walks through this patch of land.

Apr 04, 2020

I've been walking through the same small stretch of Glover Archbold Park for twenty years, since I first moved to DC. Twenty years! I have always appreciated the little winding path and its companion stream that run through the small wooded ravine between Massachusetts Avenue and Wisconsin Avenue. However, now that we are walking through this patch of land every day at a very slow speed, it is like I am seeing the park for the first time and in great detail. This is the start of my nature journal, to document the biodiversity of this special place. I will be adding illustrations and notes from my paper version in the near future.

(An aside: We get great joy out of randomly opening the bird book and the wildflower book and calling each other names of flowers and birds. "You're a cutleaf toothwort." "Oh yeah? Well you're a yellow-bellied sapsucker." It's a great way to blow of steam and get some giggles in.)

All photos below are by Stacie Lee.