This week our man Bill Holston stayed close to home with a walk through one of the prettiest parts of East Dallas.
Refuge From the Heat
By Bill Holston
The Lovin Spoonful once sang:
Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn’t it a pity
Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head
Well, they said it right. Eddie Cochran added: “Cause there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues.” Eddie Cochran had it wrong. My cure for the summertime blues lies in the shade, with a walk in the woods, a drink of cold water, and a breeze. My Sunday adventures have taken a back seat recently. My wife and I moved her mom down to Dallas. My mother-in-law, Virginia, is one of my heroes. She’s 84 and has muscular dystrophy. She’s been on her own since Jill’s dad split about 40 years ago. Despite those challenges, she’s the most positive person I’ve ever known. I’ve never heard her complain about anything. She makes true the old song lyric “To know her is to love her.” All of our friends were excited that she’ll be living closer to us. So, my Sunday routine has changed. The routine used to be: teach an adult Sunday School class and then skip church to hike. Now, we take her mom to church, then buy her lunch, do her grocery shopping, and organize her bills. We’re also all riding together to church. So, I don’t hit the trail until mid-afternoon. I’m so fond of my mother-in-law, I don’t mind the change. But I still need to hear the sound of boots hitting dirt.
This Sunday, given the late start, I returned to a walk that I’ve done many times. I walked the Dixon Branch greenbelt in old Lake Highlands. Dixon Branch is named for an early settler of the area, Solomon Dixon. Solomon Dixon, a descendant of Irish Quakers, was born in 1805 in Ohio and married his wife, Lydia, in 1831 in Lafayette County Missouri, before immigrating to Texas. Their infant daughter is the first person buried in the Cox cemetery, located on the west side of White Rock Lake. They were early settlers in this area. I think they’d be happy with how intelligently developed this area is and how many old trees line the creek that bears his name. Despite being in a residential neighborhood, it’s a lovely walk. I’ve seen lots of wildlife here as well. I’ve seen coyotes here, and recently people have reported a bobcat in these woods. I’ve always thought this is one of the prettiest neighborhoods in Dallas. It’s intersected by the Dixon Branch, which empties into White Rock Lake.
I usually hike a loop. I park my car on Clearbrook, walk to Dixfield, over to Carissa, then back along Brooksmeadow, and then along Fernald, ending with a short walk through some woods behind Lochwood Park. It’s a short walk, but I like it because almost all of it is on dirt paths. I parked the car, picked up my walking stick, and headed out. I noticed that this section of Dixon Branch is bone dry. The grasses are all dormant. There’s a lovely group of Walnuts (Juglans nigra) that I walk through, but they are showing the stress of the drought. There are also some lovely old Chinquapin (Quercus muehlenbergii) Oaks, and the abundant pecans are handling the drought very well. These old trees provide shade for most of this hike. As I walked along Dixfield I began to notice Eve’s Necklace (Leguminosae Sophora affinis) grows in the shade of the oaks and pecans. This is a beautiful small shrub that gets its name from the string of seeds forming a necklace. They have beautiful blooms in the spring. There is absolutely nothing blooming now, and many of the trees are showing signs of distress from the drought. I also noticed that some of the Prairie Sumac (Rhus lanceolata) is turning the brilliant red, which is usually its fall color, from the distress of the heat and drought.
In the spring and fall, I see lots of birds in the woods around here. I’ve seen ruby crowned kinglets in these woods. On Sunday, almost nothing was stirring other than a few white wing doves. I walked under some Mexican Plum (Prunus Mexicana) trees. In the spring, the fruit feeds birds and the rest litter the ground. Early settlers made jellies from this fruit. It was, of course, quite hot yesterday, so I stopped and had a water break. My favorite part of this walk is along Fernald. There’s a really lovely pond. I’ve often seen wood ducks (Aix sponsa) swimming in the creek here, as well as heard the rattle of belted kingfishers. Occasionally I’ll see a great blue heron here. The pond was diminished by the drought, but there were still turtles poking their heads out of the remaining water. At the end of the pond, there’s a small dam. I usually walk down to the creek and sit on a limestone boulder, listening to the sound of the falling water. The creek actually flows over a 15-foot limestone ledge, which creates one of the prettiest waterfalls in the area. After rains, it’s really a pretty dramatic fall. I’ve often seen hummingbirds perched here. I’ve seen a yellow warbler here and have often watched the dragonflies and damselflies dipping in the pools of water here.
There was no water in the creek this Sunday, so I sat on bare rock and took a water break. I took off my Guatemalan straw hat, and pulled out my water bottle. Even though it was over 100 degrees, there was a gentle breeze. I sat and it was absolutely quiet. There wasn’t even any bird song to break the quiet. I sat, writing in my journal. I was struck that the simple cold water and breeze made me as comfortable as I had been all day. I wiped the cold condensation from the side of the bottle and rubbed it on my face. I sat for a long time on the walk, just enjoying the silence. I walked along the bare rock and noticed that it was damp at a ledge. I walked over and noticed there was a seep there. Water was barely oozing from the cracks in the white rock, but it was moving water. I used my stick to stir the mud and noticed the abundance of life in even this small amount of water. First I noticed flies and gnats. But then I noticed a legless lizard, or skink, finding shelter in the moist leaves. I sat down on the rock to watch the show. Next, small frogs started jumping from the cracks in the rocks. These frogs were tiny, but were managing to survive in this tiny micro ecosystem. So here in this tiny oasis, I noticed how life was surviving even this harsh drought.
This is one of my favorite spots in Dallas. It was the location of our best kid’s birthday party, for my oldest son Will’s 11th birthday. We invited several of his best friends. I bought about 50 feet of rope and let them lose in this creek with glass bottles. They used the rope to repel down the side of the rock bluffs and collected tadpoles in the creek. We returned to the park for pizza and an ice cream cake. All of the boys were completely wet, muddy, and smiling.
I walked back through the woods on the way back to the car. The woods are mostly Eastern Red Cedar with lots of invasive lantana. But I like being able to get disconnected from the streets and houses and become immersed in woods. I returned to the car, finished off the bottle of water, and headed to the house, refreshed by a walk in the woods.
