I chose the garden next to the West building and behind the Business Office as my sit spot! When I first visited Hollins for Transfer Visit Day two years ago, the student leading my tour group brought us down into it, and I thought it would be neat to bring that experience into my first semester here through this assignment. Also, it’s a really quiet place to sit in the early morning before my classes for the day; and I live in Hampton Roads on the James River, so I’m truly missing the water. It’s got a long, white bench for me to actually sit on, facing the Northwest direction, and overlooking a small stream with rocks and greenery on the opposite side. The bench has some shrubbery next to it on either side, and my sketch is pretty crude, but the photo shows it better.

When I arrived at my sit spot, the sky was super cloudy and gray, and it was humid. One of our classmates, Morgana, was already there! Which worried me at first, but it ended up being totally fine. After laughing about it for a little, we both settled in. At first, the only thing I noticed were the bugs- in a mere 15 minutes, I somehow got covered in ants and mosquitos. But after a while, I heard a bunch of different birds. I didn’t realize how hard it was to document what birds sound like until I had to do it for this assignment! The next time I go I’ll have to record them and do a better job of putting words around it, but in the meantime, the three bird calls I heard I can only describe as chittering, cawing, and meeping? I also heard (and saw) a good number of frogs, who were super fun to watch. One of them just jumped in the stream, stopped moving, and just let the water carry him down the stream. He was spread out, but still totally upright, as if he were in a lazy river or something- it was really entertaining.

I saw a good number of flowers that I’ll have to look more into (as I have no idea what any of them are) there were a couple of purple varieties, a yellow kind, and an orangey/yellow kind. The orange/yellow kind interested me most, because it had TONS of the cutest, fattest little bumble bees hanging out all throughout it. There were some bugs floating on the surface of the actual stream, and dragonflies frequently flew right above it. Morgana told me she had seen a turtle earlier in her sitting, but despite keeping an eye out, I didn’t see any while I was there.

I thought it was relatively easy to get into the headspace for the sit-spot, but reflecting on it, the longer I sat there, the more I noticed. I think giving it time like the handout suggests really is the key there. But I struggled to note things and watch at the same time- the second I had written about the frog in my field journal (and I quite literally had only written “FROG!!!!” and underlined it) he had already floated out of my sight. But I’m sure that by the end of this assignment, that will get easier.

The three objects I’m going to follow are the orange/yellow flowers, what I described in my journal as “weird plant,” and the absolutely giant mushroom behind the bench. I’m really interested in the weird plant (pictured on the right), mostly because I’m sure it’s something ridiculously commonplace that I’m just not familiar with yet. It’s got a long, green stalk, a minimal amount of elongated, green, pointed leaves, and little brown sea urchin looking things in a cluster in the center of the plant. I’m also going to follow the orange/yellow flowers as a means to notice more seasonal changes, and also to observe the bees. The final thing I’m going to follow is the massive mushroom cluster behind the bench, because all the times I’ve visited my sit-spot, it’s made me feel super jazzed, and for some reason I absolutely love fungi.