I walk all the time, it is nothing new to me.

I was on a restoration visit today up in Georgetown, at a place called Scottsdale Farm. The farm its self is located in the heart of the escarpment country and bottlenecks with two rivers, pooling into the Credit Valley River. Sadly the two rivers are not much more than a stream and the major one is quite shallow. The second river, was next to impossible to find, by the naked eye alone. Part of the initial site visit here was to find any stressors on the site in question. So the group was divided up to different jobs. My job, along with two other gentlemen was to find this alleged second river, and do a quick assessment for ecosystem function. Which really just means, does the second river look healthy, is there erosion, is the water murky, and does is seem to be good biodiversity. Off we went on the main trail, in the general direction of the seconded stream. The interesting thing here, isn’t about finding the second river. It was the conversation, which stuck out in my mind. We walked along the Bruce trail, which is one of the largest hiking trails, surrounding the GTA, and a very common for anyone looking for scenic views. The trail markers, are either blue or white and always a rectangle, always. One of the gentlemen look at the marker, and say “I guess this is just one of the many trees effected by the emerald ash borer (EBA). I am not saying I know everything, but I am quite familiar with the trail systems. The thing I found interesting, was one who was just as educated in environmental management as me, did not recognize a very common symbol. I mean, it would be like being a driver and claiming to never of seen a yield sign before. It got me thinking, what do we know? What do we see when we navigate the trials? What are we not noticing? As something so blue and human created symbol juxtaposed against the tree bark gets, lost with all the noise.