In honor of returning home for Thanksgiving, I decided there was no better place for my phenology spot than my very own backyard.

Kindly requesting nobody shows up to my house. Thanks.

I decided to channel my inner artist for this post to produce a sketch of my backyard. Here’s what I ended up with:

My backyard!

At first I was going to talk about how one of the main differences between my phenology spot at home and my phenology spot in Burlington is the proximity to residential area, but the more I thought about it I realized that is not true. Although my spot in Burlington is in the woods, it is located toward the end of Centennial and backs up into a residential zone. My backyard, of course, is a residential zone of sorts itself. Similarities in the phenology and ecology of the two are that both areas have maple and conifer species present, and both have poison ivy nearby. The groundcover of my spot at home was similar to the leafy cover of my spot in Burlington, but significantly more grass peeked through. Moreover, there were tall, unruly grasses similar to those of the Burlington spot, but only in the unkept areas behind the neighbors shed. Both spots have a fence separating them from residential zoning.

The primary differences are manifested in the specific species present. Although there are coniferous trees and maples in both spots, there are only sugar maples in my spot at home (compared to the varying species in the Burlington spot), and arborvitae and blue spruce composing the conifers (opposed to eastern white pine). We also have an American crabapple and magnolia bush in our backyard, neither of which are present in my spot in Burlington.

For the gift in my new place, I chose to put out a birdhouse I found in my basement. Unfortunately I did not get a photo of this before I left, but I hope a family of birds will choose the house for their nesting site and grace the Tornetta family backyard with their presence.

Hoping everyone had a nice holiday!

Until next time,

Ava