Date and time: October 26, 2:17 pm (day)

A periwinkle near the entrance to my sit spot

The sun shining through some trees before my 15 meditation

This is part of my sit spot more closer to the forest northwest of me. The time I arrived was 2:17 pm and I began my journaling at 2:32 pm. I usually always do my sit spot around the daytime as this works well with my work schedule outside of school. Now that it’s starting to get colder I had to layer up for this sit spot as it’s mostly cloudy with a chilly breeze. I am also not particularly a morning person so I would like to not have to wake up so early.

I look around for my three organisms and I look at my field of ivy closest to me. Surprisingly the flour of green looks pretty healthy compared to the litter and ground around it. As the ivy looks healthy I am surprised by how it’s held up so far with the sudden drop in temperatures. Although I don’t know if it’s just my imagination or if the tip of green leaves had spread further down the plants. I believe this much green into the fall must mean there is a very intricate root system I am not seeing that is able to get enough nutrients to the plant at this point. As I look at the green of the ivy I am astounded to see it’s holding up pretty well with the cedar I chose to look at. I chose this cedar to be a control in comparing the other plants as I knew it would remain healthy and mostly constant throughout the changing of fall. Although the large spread of leaves I thought would shrivel and die has remained a nice green, maybe, even more, healthier compared to the cedar. As I expected the cedar has not changed much other than may be taken on a yellow tint. Although that could be due to the litter and ground underneath it.

I look at the berries next which I immediately see are not doing as well as the other organisms. The berries have taken hit by the most recent drop in temperatures and have either wilted or shriveled up and died. The leaves look like they were definitely made a snack of by bugs and other critters. They have either wilted or eaten away but they surprisingly still look a deep green. I see batches of dead berries that may have even been eaten and carried on their cycle of life after journeying through an animal’s insides. Although looking in rough shape the berry bush has lasted this long, although I hypothesize they won’t make it much longer as it gets closer to thanksgiving. The last picture I have is of the sky when I was looking around my sit spot, as I head birds around me but, with as sneaky as they are, I was unable to locate them. They were most likely in their nests with plans of leaving soon.

The sky when I was looking up at the trees for birds

I start looking around in my sit spot and I can immediately notice the change with fallen leaves and the difference of shades on the ground compared to the trees. I see bushes and hip-level plants have sustained a more definite green hue than the canopy but overall it’s just splashes of color. I can almost say there is more room as bushes and patches of grass have shriveled or withered and died. I focus on the sounds around me and notice bird calls. I begin to differentiate them. The first bird call I was hearing was a short burst of four 2-beat chirps. I couldn’t recognize the call but I think it may have been a cardinal but I can’t be certain. I knew it was definitely in the trees overhead towards the north of me but I could hear it getting further and further away. After that bird call faded out into the distance I focused on another one I which sounded more like a song than a call. This song started with trills and ended with an almost whistle-like tone. It sings in and up then down pitch, almost like a whistling firework. I am unable to identify these birds call either but I like to imagine it’s a migratory bird getting ready to leave its territory for the winter.

My third organism was a funny little squirrel by a tree. I heard it overhead thinking it was another bird of sorts but soon it came running down the trunk of a large tree and simply stopped at the bottom. It began to rummage around, for what I can only assume is a nut, and I made a noise to let it know I was there. It didn’t seem to care too much about my noises until I shifted my feet and it immediately focused all its attention on me. It was really cute actually as it had one hand on the tree trunk and leaning like joining a casual conversation. I tried to speak to it but I soon lost it’s attention and off it went.