The San Antonio River, Mission Reach, Confluence Park Trailhead, South, A Late November Walk, Part 2

A few more photos from yesterday's walk:

As I mentioned in my very brief text yesterday, the photos tell the story of this walk very effectively in and of themselves, but they don't tell the entire story. Keep in mind, as I have discussed in an occasional post, no photograph is objective even if it is a straight representation and unaltered. Through selective framing, the photographer always controls what the viewer sees. The viewer can only imagine what was beyond the edge of the photo.

The point here is that while these photos accurately depict my experience of the walk, they don't completely depict the present condition of the river channel. For example, this is the version of a photo as I would typically post it:

If you could see beyond the edge of the frame, this is what you would see:

When I am on my walk, I am very much aware of the general surroundings, but my eye and camera are focused on the particular.

The San Antonio River channel eco-restoration is an ongoing process that will take decades to complete. The initial phase was to reshape the channel and its banks to a more natural configuration. Then native grasses and perennials were planted and allowed to mature so the root systems would stabilize the soil and prevent erosion.

Now that these plants are established, they were recently cut back from their summer growth. Larger shrubs and tree saplings are currently being planted. The shrubs will require several years and the trees many decades to reach maturity, but by the end of next summer, the river channel will begin to look like a more complete ecosystem.

For now, the river banks for as far as I could see in both directions are heavily dotted with the orange tipped stakes marking the locations for these new plants.