In my 15 minutes which turned into 30 minutes of me being unable to focus on one thing, I was again gravitated toward the temperature. While today was roughly as cold as it was the last time I was here, today I was prepared! My comfy had just came in a few hours ago and I could not be more grateful for this comforter turned hoody. Along with my comfy, which made the cold, that had once filled up my mind, feel almost unnoticeable, I also remembered to bring my cushion thanks to the reminder at the top of the guided questions for this blog.

When I was looking around all cozy and comfortable, I noticed something I had before, how clear the air looked to me. Today has been quite overcast and even with it being cloudy, the air still seemed be clearer than it has before. I’m starting to think this has something to do with the rain. When I was racking my brain trying to focus on one thing, I realized that my focus on the temperature and the air came from a desire in me to want to look at something aside from the direct spaces around me I had been staring at for so long. I wanted to focus in on something a little less tangible because I have been focusing on so much of the stuff right in front of me.

Once I had come back from my extended time of intangible focus, I looked into my three focal point objects.

Tree: The tree is now even more bare than the last time I was here. The entire tree is almost stripped of its leaves and the bark is ever more noticeable. This has to be one of the most evident places of change.

Foliage: The foliage is another place that has shown very large signs of the evident change with winter approaching. It is now almost entirely gone, with just a few completely brown pieces of the plants left. The fallen leaves from the trees now make up the entire area where the foliage once sat.

Foliage in my Blog 3 post.

All that is left of the foliage now.

Waterfall: The waterfall is back to not seeming as though it has changed. I didn’t notice much difference in it. The main difference was the amount of green leave now filling up the top of the waterfall. The amount of water moving seems to be about the same as it has been previously, lighter than it was in my last post but consistent with how it has been in the past.

For the first five minutes of listening with my eyes open, I found it very hard to focus on sound alone. My eyes wanted to move with every single movement I saw which made me become more focused on my sight than I did on the sound around me. I found in order to actually listen in with my eyes open I had to stare straight up in my sit-spot so that my view was limited. When I did this, I began to notice how I could really only hear the waterfall and the wind moving leaves, the obvious sounds seemed to be the only ones breaking through my senses. The story was entirely different once my eyes were closed which I won’t lie surprised me a lot. Once I had my eyes closed, I stayed laying back and began to be able to sort past the sounds of the waterfall. The rustling leaves stayed in my ears, almost as if they were the new movement my senses focused on. Now I could also hear the sound of the cars in the distance with people leaving and coming. There was also a massive manual truck I was able to pick out because I could hear the transmission with each gear shift. With it being later afternoon, I heard people walking to and from their cars and talking. The clarity of their words was amazing. I was unsure if they were talking loudly or if I was just getting better at listening.

The space I decided to focus in on was one square meter of the water. I decided to not focus in on the waterfall, the tree, or the foliage as I have before because these areas are my focal points and I feel as though I’ve given them a lot of thought and energy already. When deciding to pick the water I felt as though this was a good place because I often feel I overlook what is happening in the water directly below me, focusing my attention mostly on the active waterfall or the area below it. When looking at my tiny habitat, I noticed so much life that I had never really thought of before. On the surface of the water were several green leaves, all flowing down the stream to the waterfall. At the bed of the water lied a layer of leaves that had fallen in from the trees above. It surprised me that some of the leaves had found their way to this area of the stream because the waterfall is directly below it. The presence of the leaves alone gave sign to the decomposition occurring in the world around me, they were all discolored, and most had seen the signs of decomposition. Nothing in the bottom of the stream bed aside from its mercy brown soot is the same from what I can see. The leaves are dispersed in no particular fashion and the muddy bottom is hilly, textured with small and large mounds. The topography of the water gave light to what I believe is the combination of biotic and abiotic life moving together. While watching this spot I did not see very many animals I could distinguish. I saw one crayfish that seemed to be looking for food as it was just coming into my view every so often from a rock closer to the shoreline. This animal caused no disturbance to the floor of the stream, but I can only imagine what it may do when it finds food or is moving things around for its home. The movement of the water is also something I thought of when looking into this area, the riverbeds uneven distribution made me think about how the moving water must cause patterns underneath of its ripples, leaving behind this pattern of deposited sediments forming the different aspects of this landscape.