9/17/19 2:52 PM – 3:40 PM, Partly cloudy, windy

When we first got the assignment for the sit spot, I had an idea of where I wanted my sit spot to be. At first, I had planned to go and sit directly under the old oak tree that was in my yard, but as it turns out, fate had other plans. As I thought about my sit spot more and more, I decided that I would move so that I wasn’t directly under the oak tree, but still close by enough that I could still see it. Settling into a patch of moss, I was directly in between an oak tree and an apple tree, and a large bush sat in front of me. All sorts of leaves and acorns were scattered on the ground and I concluded that this would be the perfect spot to conduct my observations.

As I walked into my sit spot and started my observations, I found myself surprised as I saw a broken tree limb on the ground where I had chosen my spot. I had picked out the spot a few days earlier and the broken tree limb hadn’t been there before. It was a decent sized branch as well, not the thickest branch in the tree but certainly thick enough that it shouldn’t have broken easily. And yet as I observed the branch, I could see that the smaller branches had broken as well, indicating that it had most likely had fallen from a great height to cause the damage. The fact that the branch was broken, as well as directly in the middle of my sit spot, had me looking around to see if I could spot any other such limbs that were broken. Sure, enough there were. None of them compared in size really but one could see the ground littered with broken sticks and twigs if one was to look. There was even a branch that was clearly broken and yet hadn’t touched the ground due to a couple of other branches holding it up.

My fifteen minutes of observation almost up, I spotted a little plant bud attached to a spider web on the bush at my sit spot. At first, however, I could not tell what it was as I was not close enough. When I first looked at it, I thought for sure that it had to be a feather of some sort, as it was a little burr-like plant bud and looked rather like a feather or something fluffy. I also toyed around with the idea that could be an unlucky fluffy caterpillar/bug that had gotten stuck in a web as well. It wasn’t until later when I came close enough to take a picture, that I realized it was part of the plant. Nature has a funny way of playing tricks on us sometimes. It can make us see something that isn’t there or something other than what we think we see.

Even as I observed my surroundings, I listened to all the sounds around me. There were some unnatural noises, such as the when cars were coming down the road nearby, but for the most part I was able to tune those sounds out. One sound I could hear easily was the rustling of leaves. It was quite windy during my observations, so as the wind blew past, one could hear the wind blowing by all the leaves. Not only that, but sometimes with how strong the winds were, I could hear the wind as it brushed past my body. The wind, however, was not the only thing I heard. Another constant, was the little tinging of bugs as they played their joyful tunes. While I could not remember exactly what each was by sound alone, I did recall hearing a cricket quiet clearly towards the end of my time. In addition to that, I heard the cawing of birds, which I presumed were crows, as I have seen crows multiple times around my house. There was also a quiet trill of a bird, which was quite different from the crow’s own cawing’s. In fact, it was quiet enough that I barely heard it at all. While I couldn’t quite place the sound, I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for it again when I next go to my sit spot.

While observing my surroundings, I also made sure to take in the smells that surrounded me. For the most part, I was getting the same earthy smell; the scent of all the plants and dirt mixing together was prominent. However, occasionally, the scent of freshly cut grass was blown my way by the wind that was different from all the other scents pushed my way.

I felt as if my first time at my sit spot went well. Yes, there were some distractions, but I think whenever I caught myself slowly getting distracted, I focused back in on the nature around me quickly. With the few distractions I had, I would have to say the one that distracted me the most was possibly having the cars go past as my sit spot, while being a natural spot, is not far enough away from the road to prevent cars from being heard. Looking back at this experience, both reminds me of old times when I’d go out and play near the oak tree and gives me a new perspective of the same place. Playing underneath a tree is not the same as looking at the nature that makes up the tree and the area surrounding it.