At home, I explored behind my house. I live in the Luther forest, in Saratoga county, New York. Here, Thomas C Luther planted thousands of red pines many years ago for reforestation efforts. My parents built our house here before the area has been taken over by technology campuses, including GlobalFoundries which has recently been headquartered to the Malta location, just five minutes from my house. Our neighbors who have been here for years chose the area because it was away from the major towns in the area, and because it is a great place for hunting, hiking, and snowmobiling. Weaved in the woods is a large system of snowmobile trails that people come to enjoy after hunting season, and some of the largest deer in the area reside in these woods.

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding where I live between homeowners and the new construction. For years there has been a fight between homeowners and the Malta tech park. When the area transitioned from the dirt roads to paved roads and logging began, I feel it has lost some of its meaning because of Thomas Luther’s purpose. I live in a part across the road from more woods and where the tech parks are with more maple, oak, hemlock, paper birch, ash, beech, and pine trees. There is also poison ivy, but not too many wild bushes just young trees.

In Burlington, my phenology place has much more cedar trees, striped maple, and red maple. It also has much more invasive plants. I included photos of the stream directly behind my house named ” Plum Brook” where I have spent a lot of time my whole life. The stream is has a two bridges and connects to my neighbors ponds. Over the years we have created trails throughout this part of the woods for fourwheelers, snowshoeing in the winter, and hunting. In this stream I have made many dams over the years for fun, and have seen lots of wildlife and minnows.

Recently, across the road from the Brook, the completely wooded area as seen by my map included has been deforested along the road to build a development and apartments. This is extremely upsetting because it has disrupted the wildlife and we have seen virtually no deer because of this, when the area used to be greatly populated. They almost did this to the area behind my house, but one of my neighbors bought the large piece of land to prevent that. I came home this thanksgiving to see how much destruction was done, and it was very unsettling. I’m sad to see the place where I grew up slowly being destroyed.