Urban Returns

Nature writing in the modern age

pmirek — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:56:54 +0000

Starting in the 18^th century, the natural world became a popular nonfiction subject for writers. Charles Darwin (The Voyage of the Beagle, The Origin of Species), John James Audobon (The Audobon Reader), and Gilbert White (The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne) are all well-known in certain circles, but the person most associated with the early popularity of nature writing is Henry David Thoreau. His pioneering work Walden; or, Life in the Woods, published in 1854, was a captivating blend of personal discovery, transcendentalist philosophy, and natural description.You needn’t look back over 150 years for examples of great nature writing, and you needn’t give up all modern luxuries, like running water and wireless internet, to appreciate the wonder of nature. A great place to start is The Best American Science and Nature Writing series. The 2010 edition is edited by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, and while there is a healthy selection of scientific essays, there are also a number of wonderful ruminations on nature. The stand-outs include Don Stap’s “Flight of the Kuaka,” an impressively far-reaching migratory bird, and a piece by Jane Goodall on the rediscovery of a presumed-extinct phasmid (a type of insect). Big names like Goodall are also a good place to start if you’re looking for specific books. Goodall has been publishing continuously since 1969, starting with the now-out-of-print My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees. Most of her works center on the relationships between animals, humans, and the environment, as in her acclaimed 1971 work In the Shadow of Man.Christopher Camuto’s trilogy of books centered on the Appalachian Mountains is more concerned with the environment in general. Ruminations on a variety of subjects work their way into his books, including the language of the Cherokee tribe, historical life in the mountains, and the reintroduction of the red wolf into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The trilogy includes A Fly Fisherman’s Blue Ridge, Another Country: Journeying Toward the Cherokee Mountains, and Hunting from Home: A Year in the Blue Ridge Mountains.As with any type of writing, not every nature writer will appeal to every reader. However, reading a good nature book is a good way to remind yourself that there’s a whole world out there, and that each of your actions affects it in some way.

Local Hiking Trails In Your Country Side Area

admin — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

There are some fantastic local hiking trails in the country side of Iowa, particularly in northeast Iowa. It is here you will find great trails as part of the Effigy Mounds National Park. Here the long hiking trails provide unique history of the area, which includes fascinating information about American Indian tribes that once lived in the area. It also provides some incredible views of the Mississippi river and the surrounding states, forests, and wildlife.

With some exploring there are some other fun places to hike at. This would include following some of the rivers around Iowa. With so many to pick from including the Iowa River, Cedar River, and Yellow River, there is some fantastic wildlife and preserve areas surrounding them. This type of hiking is normally more difficult because of the lack of trails, but also gives people a better chance of seeing wildlife and have a fantastic time.

Iowa has a lot of developed land, but there are a lot of local hiking trails in the country side area if you know where to look. Most of the lakes and parks have trails, and with so many of them finding a good place to hike is easy.

A Walk In The Park Through Flora And Fauna

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Visitors who go to New York’s Central Park enjoy walking through the park’s flora and fauna everyday. This vast park offers a world of wildlife, plants, and flowers that many will find interesting. Squirrels can be seen scampering up trees and climbing on limbs by park visitors as they walk down the many walking trails of Central Park. An occasional coyote may be spotted on a hillside while turtles and other small wildlife may come out of Central Park’s foliage. Beautiful birds also inhabit this space, so for bird watchers, this park is a great place to visit. Central Park offers a wonderful array of different types of flowers such as daffodils and tulips that will catch a person’s eye. There is actually a conservatory inside the park where visitors can look at thousands of flowers every year. Several types of trees can be found within Central Park’s boundaries including maple and elm. Visitors who walk through the park during the autumn months will be delighted to see the beautiful, vibrant colors of the leaves upon the park’s trees.

Walking through lovely flora and wild fauna in Central Park will offer a relaxing time that visitors will not soon forget.

Finding Your Way Back To Nature With Herbs

admin — Sun, 08 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes people feel like they have lost their way. The majority of the world’s population resides in, or very close to cities. Long gone are the days when most of the world’s residents lived off the land and respected all that nature has to offer. Today people only respect what coffee shops and big retail outlets offer, an easy fix to life.

Even with these great and various business that make life so much easier, people always have a yearning to go back to their roots. Read any self help book today, or talk with someone stuck in the daily grind of work, and the common theme will be something needs to change.

Not everyone can go to live out in the woods for the rest of their lives. People still have to work to provide for their families, but one way we find our way back to nature is through the re-introduction of herbs in our lives.

Healthy living and a new beginning may start when we learn which herbs can handle certain ailments or diseases. Today, with the introduction of the supermarket, herbs are not hard to find. Visit your local grocery store to gather some herbs today.

Take a nature park vacation: 5 recommended hot-spots

www.urbanreturns.com — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 05:20:52 +0000

When the crowded city streets start getting you down, it’s usually a signal for a change of scenery. You won’t find any more beautiful than in one of America’s national parks. These bastions of wild beauty serve as reminders that man cannot survive on broadband alone.

Acadia (Maine): Located off of Maine’s coast on the island of Mount Desert and on surrounding islands and the mainland, totaling over 47,000 acres. The reserve includes Cadillac Mountainone of the earliest spots to see sunrise in the U.S. Trust usit’s worth getting up early.

Denali (Alaska): This Alaskan park is named for the Athabaskan name for Mount McKinley, which means “the high one.” You can see an abundance of living wildlife and a number of historic sites which point to the park’s millennia-long past. Fossils of wading birds and theropods (bipedal dinosaurs) have been found in the area.

Great Smoky Mountains (Tennessee/North Carolina): This park’s entrances are located in Cherokee, North Carolina and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The Appalachian Trail winds through the park (overall, there are 850 miles of trails), which includes a startling two black bears per square mile.

Hot Springs (Arkansas): Hot Springs is both the oldest (founded 1832) and smallest (only 5,550 acres) federal reserve in America. Enjoy one of the historic bath-houses or bathe at a hospitable hotel, and watch your troubles float away. Don’t let the fact that people have been doing the same thing since the 1820s deter you.

Olympic (Washington): Seattle is known for its rain, but its Washington’s Olympic Park which boasts the highest annual average on the American mainland (150 inches). This precipitation makes for a temperate rainforest habitat and is home to many native Pacific Northwest wildlife species (like the Roosevelt elk and Olympic marmot), making for a one-of-a-kind visit.

Rough it with ReserveAmerica.com

www.urbanreturns.com — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 02:35:06 +0000

I was shocked the other day to turn my head on the interstate and see that a new camping location had popped up just outside of town. That sort of random coincidence can be the beginning of a great environmental adventure, with little preparation needed. If you’re planning your trip in advance, though, I highly recommend checking out ReserveAmerica.com.The site’s large databases hold info on over 4,000 parks with over 300,000 campsites, including both federal and private sites. RA was responsible for moving the campground processing industry online, and processed the first such transaction in 1997. The listings stay up-to-date, alerting you to closed-sites and special accommodation details. Whether you’re bringing an RV or just the family dog, you’ll be able to find the site that’s best for you. For more information, visit the site or contact ReserveAmerica at http://www.reserveamerica.com/contact.do.

Cutting down on air pollution in your city

www.urbanreturns.com — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:15:44 +0000

While it’s always nice to get away and back to nature, at some point you have to come home. With air pollution the way it is these days, that can be a frightening proposition. Lately, almost everybody is looking over their shoulder to see the size of their carbon footprint. In big cities, it’s even more important. With that many people in one place, it can seem difficult to make a difference when it comes to lowering air pollution. And while there’s certainly a large task ahead of us, there are some simple steps you can take to making your home a safer place to breathe.

Use energy conservation techniques to limit your energy spending. Turn off lights and devices when not in use.
If possible, plant trees near your home to help shade your house during the summer.
Purchase Energy Star-rated products to use energy more effectively.
Limit your time in the car by combining trips, and follow the speed limit.
Don’t idle in long drive-through lines. Go inside instead.
Use devices with rechargeable batteries.
Recycle applicable products and buy products made from recycled material. It’s a cycle. Get it?.
Limit your time in the shower and use low-flow shower heads.
Support legislation in your local government that focuses on healthier air.
Make sure those letters you send are on double-sided paper. Save paper with a clean side for taking notes or making lists.

America’s most spacious zoos

www.urbanreturns.com — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 20:55:32 +0000

There’s nothing like a trip to the zoo. If you’ve ever visited one as a child, it’s tough to pick which memory is most vivid. Was it the monkeys swinging expertly through the trees? The lumbering elephants slowly crossing their pens? Perhaps the taste of fresh cotton candy in your mouth while watching the wolves bathe nonchalantly in the sun?Whatever it was, a zoo trip is a great gift to share with your family. Every local zoo deserves support, and you hopefully won’t have to go far to find one near you. If you’re interested in planning a more invested trip, though, you might be interested to know where you can find the largest zoos in America.Disney’s Animal Kingdom (Orlando, Florida) is Disney’s largest park, and also one of the largest zoos by space in the U.S. Covering more than 500 acres, the park houses around 1,700 animals and 250 species. Passage through the park brings you much closer to the wildlife than in other zoos. However, many other parks boast a larger variety of species.The Baltimore Zoo is 160 acres big and houses over 1,500 animals, but the true exhibit of variety is the San Diego Zoo. Over 107 acres, the park contains over 4,000 animals across and more than 880 species. It’s also one of only four locations in the world where you can see the Giant Panda, and an automated gondola lift provides a whole new perspective on the park. The Phoenix Zoo in Arizona also deserves mention as the largest non-profit park in the U.S. (125 acres).