FGCU Food Forest

Visiting FGCU's Food Forest on 1/13/16 was not my first encounter with the area of land that sits between campus' main entrance filled with edible and useful vegetation. Our tour guides/ environmental naturalists spent about an hour explaining the different aspects of the Food Forest and how each plant and animal has a vital role in keeping the other vegetation in conjunction with one another.

I thought it was fascinating how all of the plants were arranged around each other, with a major focus on water drainage and elevations. It was also very interesting how some plants like the fire bush are in the Food Forest to attract pollinators like bees and butterflies rather than for human consumption.

The ability for students to create a place like the food forest with no initial help from faculty or staff- and with Student Government's funding is remarkable. The experience that those students got from starting this project must have been life changing. I think that so many students here are looking for a way to leave their mark on FGCU and these Food Foresters found a way by following one of their passions.

Week 1- 1/13/2016

Ever since I moved in I knew Timberwalk wasn't home. A townhouse maybe, but I-75 is a neighbor that doesn't bring you cookies when you move in or have an extra egg when you run out. It is simply white noise at this point that provides light pollution and white noise. This neighborhood the exact kind of suburbia that I hope to avoid for the rest of my life- with speed bumps protecting neighborhood children from drunken college kids and security gates keeping the bad guys out or trapping them in.

The only place I don't get sick of is on my bike, simultaneously turning the gears of the components of this simplistic yet complex machine and my brain in harmony. This summer my bike took me across the country- from Jacksonville, Florida to Monterey, California. The hardest part of this trip (besides climbing the endless mountains) was accepting that I had to recondition myself to everyday life once reaching the Pacific Ocean.

Brief moments still occur when I wish this bike could be my forever home, but I know that it is my responsibility to provide others with the opportunity that I have been blessed with- understanding the potential of nature and how much power it has to affect you. That is what I plan to commit my life to, and hopefully find a better sense of place in the process.
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“It occurred to me, as it sometimes does, that this day is over and will never be lived again, that we are only the sum of days, and when those are spent, we will not come back to this place, to this time, to these people and these colors, and I wonder whether to be sad about this or to be happy, to trust that these moments were meant for some kind of enjoyment, as a kind of blessing. And if feels, tonight, as if there is much to think about, there is much we have been given and much we have left behind.” 

― Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts