The right side view from my sit spot.

The head on view from my sit spot.

My sit spot is located at the top of the hill, just outside the barn. It overlooks the summit pasture, and looks towards the mountains. I sit underneath two trees, which are about 6 feet apart (social distanced trees!). It is about 20 feet off the side of the road that leads into the parking lot of the barn. From this spot there is an incredible view of the mountains from the right side and from head on. As you can see from the left picture, the branches of the trees are right above me, almost combining together into one big tree. One tree, the left tree, has a bunch of large vines and big green leaves growing up the sides of it. I am curious to see if these leaves will be changing colors as the other trees change colors for the fall. The right tree is covered all over with white splotches, some orange mixed in.

The trees on the mountains have started changing colors, only slightly though. You can see that scattered throughout the forest, there are some small pops of color. I am excited to see what the mountains look like when all the leaves have changed. I’m sure it looks like something out of a movie.

My second thing that I was watching are the trees that I am sitting under. I am watching them them to see if the vines on the left side tree are going to disappear or grown even further down. I am curious to know what the white and orange splotches are on the right side tree. I’m not sure if it is some type of fungus or if it’s invasive. it could be anything!

My third thing is a purple flower. It has little purple spindles, which I’m sure hold the pollen and other things that allow the plant to be pollinated. It’s only a little flower, and there’s only one around this area which is very interesting to me. How did this one little purple flower make it all the way up to the top of this hill and underneath the tree? It hasn’t changed much though, it’s just thriving. It’s colors are very vibrant and it is very purple.

Walking around my sit spot, I was able to look closer at the purple flower. I noticed that the spikes have a more Y shaped shape to them, instead of just spikes. There are also little spikes in the middle that hold the pollen, that look straight up to the sky. I’m sure this adaptation was made in order to help the flower get pollinated more easily. The opened shape of the flower allows for pollinator bees to come and go collecting and transporting pollen between different plants. This adaptation was put in place because if the pollen receptors on plants are too hard to reach, pollinators will not be able to pollenate them as easily. I’m sure the spikes on the plant were developed to help the plant from predators, mostly grazers, who like to eat different types of plants. With the spikey edges, the plant makes itself more unattractive to predators. I probably wouldn’t have thought to walk around my sit spot because I enjoy staying in one place and observing what goes on around me.

The left side view of my sit spot. (disclaimer: ignore Charlie’s big head, I just needed a better angle in order to do justice to the terrain below)

The Left side tree. It has a lot of vines and big leaves on the trunk.

The spikey purple flower I found.