Back Home, Reflection on New and Old

Back Home– Description of Place -(Leopold style)

The snow has started to fall down, slowly swaying to land on wet darkened leaves. To the side water gushes down a stream, gurgling enjoying its full banks. The water rushes over the rock bed, like a silken scarf, bundling the land up for winter.  Looking up I see bare branches that let the grey sky slip through their grasps and fall down to my eyes.  I scan around and am filled with memories of this time year in this spot. I see a year with snow blanketing the earth and my dog jumping through it. I see another year with warmer temperatures and the trees still clinging to their multi-color leaves.  I realize the strength of this place and the changes.  A build up of water on one sides feeds the roaring water on the other, as it always has.  I know this means that Pittsburgh has gotten lots of rain recently, otherwise it the stream would have less force. I take one last glance of the bed of leaves filling the trails and know I’ll be back soon to see more changes.

 

New and Old– Comparison of Redstone Quarry and Frick Park- (Holland)

The difference between these two locations are not numerous. Frick park has a damp conditions same to Redstone Quarry and native and invasive species as well. For the invasive buckthorn at the Quarry, Frick has an invasive species of Bush Honeysuckle.  Both taking over the landscape.  While Redstone has thickets of bushy areas and then spots of open stone and then bunches of cattails, Frick is dominated by trees, deciduous trees with few areas of open grass and one small wetland spot.  Some difference between these locations is the temperature. Vermont right now is colder  and got colder sooner than Pittsburgh and thus the leaves are almost completely gone from the leaves where as here in Pittsburgh there are still a few trees with the majority of their leaves on.  One other difference that is easily seen is the type of species in the two locations. Redstone has more coniferous trees in its midst unlike Frick park with its few.  Still with this all in mind the two locations seem to have more comparisons than differences. They overlap in more ways than can be seen.