October, 18, 2020. 6:01 PM.


It didn’t take long after sitting down for autumn to grab me by the ankles. Cool air chilled my body from the grabbing-site up. The stone step is ever-cold on my butt. I can feel it sapping the heat from my body, claiming it as its own. I do my best to shake the thoughts from my head and just focus on the nature around me. Oh! The crayfish are out today! I wonder where they went that one day I didn’t see them… The water in the spring is so clear. I can see the tiny ripples formed by the flow out of the rock wall. Could you drink it? The sun is setting now, the sky looks warmer in hue by the moment. It’s still blue, but you just know that the sun is setting even though its behind a house. The bamboo is still green, I doubt it will turn tan. It’ll probably just die during the winter. And then I close my eyes.
This was present before, but the birds are so loud and prominent today. Each bird is screaming what I presume to be its own desperate sex-scream. There are so many of them. It’s anyone’s guess as to where they are, but they sound like they’re in the trees in the walkway leading to Moody… I wonder if humans have their own weird scream thing. I hear rustling and I don’t know why. Rustle rustle rustle. I hear something strange that sounds like I could be the call of an insect or a frog. I’ll go with insect. As always, I hear the faint noise of the water draining out of the spring. Where does it go to?
HORSETAILS? This bamboo has been HORSETAIL ALL THIS TIME??? I cannot believe my iNaturalist eyes. That’s cool though. Thank you iNaturalist. It also turns out mystery bush is a hydrangea plant. It makes sense, those little things on top did look like flowers, how sweet. I decide I’m going to find out what the foliage beneath mystery bush is instead of the plant containing the unknown fruit due to a spring being in the way. It says they look like periwinkles… I’ll have to look into that one.


Unlike last time, I counted the water striders. There were 16 striding this afternoon. That is a lot! I didn’t count the crayfish though, they were so hard to see! Only the small ones were out, going in and out of their little holes in the sediment and rocks and such. The water line looks like it’s receding still. It makes me think that the wall just looks like that and it’s not receding. The salamanders look like they haven’t grown very much. I hope they survive the winter. Will the spring freeze over? Is it deep enough for the little guys to keep warm? I am concerned, but they are there for a reason I guess. They’ve survived this far… small ecosystem. And as for the deviant dandelion… they are no more. The yellow has since turned into the puffy white and wilted. But… hark! A second deviant has emerged from the wall, growing proud, closed but ready to bloom at any moment. You go dandelion plants, you don’t need to grow out of a horizontal surface!
As always ants are bustling around me, doing their anty things. (I found one in my bed later that day. Makes me wonder if he hitched a ride on my body) Then I inspect the area around where I’m sitting, and I notice the lichen very much. Has it grown? It seems like there is more of it now. It is so minty in hue, I notice how vibrant it is. I touch it and it is soft. Haha. Ew. Its like scraping a coral, right? I kind of damaged it by touching it, right? Haha… I can hear what sounds to be crickets now. They weren’t here before. It’s nice. It would be nicer if I didn’t have to pee. Plus it’s getting dark. I forgot to look at the sunset. I was busy tuned in. Plus, I am very cold. It hasn’t been an hour yet.. but I’m sure its ok this one time.

I leave at 6:47

2020-10-20 21-43