Looking South towards my original sit spot

NW of my sit spot

My last sit spot… It is crazy to think that the semester is already wrapping up and that this is the last time I will be at Brookside Park for this assignment. It will not be my last time here though. I plan on trying to do this sit spot as a place for me to unwind and bring attention back to the center of my soul and reconnect with nature. When I say that I have enjoyed this assignment this semester, I have truly enjoyed it!

This has been an eye opening experience in that I will now always note the subtle changes that are happening in some of my

My vine, alive and well from week 1.

In front of me also my poor vine that hangs on for dear life.

favorite places. It has, not once, been the same old park with the same old stuff. I fear that the only thing I have done to start this post is to act as if this is some profound thing. It really has been though. I did not expect this many new finds throughout the semester.

The only thing that I wish I would have found were some deer, rabbits, groundhogs, or something. That wasn’t meant to be, but to examine the plants and trees has been awesome.

 

I arrived at my sit spot at 10:26 am on November 15, 2020. It was a cloudy day with the chances of more rain for this afternoon, so I wanted to get here as soon as I could. The clouds were varying shades of gray with a few rain drops here and there but nothing major. It was 55 degrees with a light wind. I was unable to get to my sit spot because the water had became a raging river again because of the several inches of rain in the last couple of days. When I arrived at my sit spot, I could hear the water from my car which is the first time this has ever happened.  I immediately knew I was not getting to my spot. As I was walking, I knew that the water was much higher than the nighttime sit spot I went to by the damage to the ground.  I now understood why I was unable to get to my sit spot the other day on day 2 of the rain that we had. They had the road closed off for high water,

From where I am sitting, you can somewhat see the damage on the ground. I would have been underwater

but at the time, there was no water on the roadway. I am fairly positive that the water was to at least the underneath of the bridge. I thought about it and figured that I would take a picture of what would be me under water had I had been here when the water was at its deepest. I am sitting down by the way. There was a lot of natural and man made trash all around from the volume of water that has passed through here. The water may have receded

The gray sky with the sun peaking out from behind a dense cloud

a little, but it is still a raging river of sorts.

I was unable to access two of the three items that I have been watching this semester, but was able to get pictures of two of them. The Northern Sea Oat is a lost cause. It has been ravaged by the

You can see my car back in the distance with me at the entrance to the sit spot

waters and is dead. I had to really look for where it was and was able to see enough to know that I was there.

 

 

 

 

The Great Scented Liverwort (a species summary I have done) is slightly visible, but not

Barely visible on the land at the water line should be the Great Scented Liverwort

accessible because I could not go across the creek. I think it can faintly be seen in the pictures, but not much of it.

Then there is my poor vine… My poor, poor, pathetic vine. Still hanging on with everything it has with no signs of life on it at all. It is really a sad sight to see, but brings about it a sense of hope that as long as you hold on with everything you have, you will survive. It is a nice reminder that it brings with the mess of 2020 all around us.

Watching the water patterns of the creek/river have been nothing short of amazing throughout this experience. There is so much more life to the water when there is so much of it. It almost sounds like waves at the ocean. The pictures that I took of the water can speak for themselves on the beauty it holds. It is fascinating how the water is all going in one directions, yet it takes so many different routes to get there. I was able to recreate the “snake” ribbons in the water which was pretty cool as well.

Me playing in the water just a little

Me playing in the water when there was barely any in the creek

To the NW of my sit spot

I loved the pattern of the water here

my “snake” ribbons in the water

So awesome to see the different directions of the water

more water direction

 

 

 

 

So awesome to see the different directions that the water was going in

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have seen some pretty awesome things this semester while coming here. I was able to catch a glimpse of the sun while I was out, but it was gone before I could finish writing about it. I have not seen any animals except one squirrel that ran away before I could get a picture of him and a few birds flying high up in the sky. There have been a lot of changes to my sit spot since I first came here at the beginning of the semester. My sit spot is not secluded anymore because all of the trees are bare. There are a few plants still around but they are not in the best of shape right now. There is a center ring of green plans that break up all of the dead things above and below them. Here are some before and after pictures:

Northern Sea Oat when I first saw it

What is left of the Northern Sea Oat

Moss-covered branch in the creek to the NW of my sit spot. Week 1

No branch anymore

I really feel like I have learned a ton of things over the course of the semester that have made me want to go and do other sit spots around the area and observe the changes in other places as well. It is a great stress relief and a wonderful way to reconnect with nature. I never expected half of the things that I found and the one thing that I will always remember is that things change more than we think they do. It is not ever going to be just the same thing. Animal and plant life are constantly changing and it is nice to go and get dirty, explore, and become a kid again. While my sit spot is not the same as it was that first day I was there, I do not think it will ever be the same spot that it was on that first day. Even next Spring, everything will be different than it was. Will I ever find any sort of animals here? It is hard to say, but just because I do not see them does not mean that they do not enjoy the times when I am not here. While this area may not be beautiful right now, the things that made it beautiful have to die in order to see the beauty that lies under all the shrubs and grasses.

I think my favorite thing about my sit spot was the water. There was so much to watch that it was unbelievable. I also liked to watch how the water carried different features of the land around it away and brought more things to the area from other places. Maybe I just enjoyed playing in the water lol.

I hope all of you have enjoyed reading my posts as much as I have enjoyed writing them. I hope to continue something like this on my own, even if it is just in my own journal since I have plenty of pages left in it for more writing. Have a great day and go exploring!!