Bayou by Hand
On a Sunday, we planned a day of activity for the four of us that was right in our pandemic wheelhouse: nature-based, at a natural area that we have talked about for years but hadn’t gotten to yet, tucked away in a community we know little about. Since March 2020, we have traveled up and down the Gulf Coast to bird sanctuaries and coastal preserves, braving Trumpy beachgoers and we have sought out woodsy natural zones in one of Houston’s wealthiest neighborhoods, we have revisited our nearby nature centers over and over, we passed through rundown towns to the nature preserve across from pawn shops and strip joints.
This weekend, we set google maps to the Armand Bayou Nature Center in Pasadena, TX. (My wife has the lovely habit of researching the suburb or town through which we are traveling, which is how I know that Pasadena was named for the one in California and that Clara Barton once donated millions of pounds of strawberry seeds/plants to Pasadena after the terrible hurricane at the turn of the 20th century.) Wetlands, forests, prairies…bayou, piney woods…. Some beautiful newer interpretive centers and greenhouse, and an old farmhouse that survived the aforementioned hurricane in order to be moved by truck and barge to this site in the 1980s. There’s little more you could want from a nature center.
And there was copious signage, of the charming yellow letters on brown background variety, and so many examples of fantastic hand-written signage!
the chalkboard
Along three exterior walls of the (closed) classroom building, there was panel after panel of exquisite chalk handwriting and drawing. I captured what I could, but I could’ve also spent hours looking at just these boards.
the children’s garden
I heard my 6 year old son yelp like he’d just won a contest as he entered the child-scale educational garden. “He was so excited that something was open, for once,” said my wife. Hand-written placards throughout described the little plantings.
the smitty’s on hold
There was a modest blacksmith’s shop near the farmhouse, just this side of the cistern and the windmill. An anvil, a wrench from the 1890s, a thick, rusted vice grips were left for people to look at. A sign in chalk leaning against the base of the anvil announced the delay of the normal schedule of blacksmithing classes.
just push
The final gate to leave the park and return to the parking lot swung open and closed using a simple and beautiful counterweight and wire system, with functionality activated with this simple instruction and illustration.
Just push: a message for our times, with the helping hand to go with it.
