Description of my new Site in the style of Marbel Wright:
You know that creepy and unsettling eerie feeling when you think about an old cemetery? Well that is the feeling that I get everytime I stay over my friend Dora’s house. A few years back she and her family sold their house and moved into a new one that is right next to an old cemetery. The cemetery is always quiet, and it radiates a feeling of serenity and peace. This mixture of emotions is part of the reason why I selected this spot as my Thanksgiving Phenology Site. The area between Dora’s house and the cemetery consists of many different plants from bushes to trees to different grasses. Right now the site is very brown looking since all of the leaves are on the ground. Also, when I gaze out into the landscape and I peer down the long, lonesome, empty driveway, there is sadness that washes over me. There was no trace of wildlife at all, further adding to the sad emptiness of the space. Sure the unbreakable silence can be therapeutic, especially when visiting a loved one who has passed, in a sense of nature though, it is sad that such a beautiful environment can be so empty, quiet, and sad.
Comparison of my two Sites in the style of Aldo Leopold:
In this day and age, the biggest concern is how people need to learn how to live in harmony with nature rather than just live however people want without paying attention to the environment around them. In the environment between my friend Dora’s house and the Union Prospect Cemetery in my home town, it is always quiet, peaceful, and empty. Even though it is empty, it is located right on the side of a road which has a bank on it, so the road is always busy. I don’t know which is better, to have the environment stay quiet and ignored, or to be visited by people and appreciated, with the chance that humans will alter the beauty and harmony.
In comparison to my Phenology Site in Centennial Woods, both spots have a sense of quiet and emptiness. The spot in Centennial Woods, however, contained wildlife such as squirrels, chipmunks, and woodpeckers, whereas there were no signs of wildlife in my new spot when I visited. Also, my spot in Centennial woods is located right off the side of the main hiking path that runs through the woods. People often hike, walk, run, and bring their dogs through there, so it is probably safe to say that it is slightly more visited than the spot next to the cemetery. The Phenology of both places is similar in some ways and different in other ways. For example, in Centennial Woods, most of the leaves have fallen already, but back at my other site, there is a good amount of leaves on the ground, but some of the trees still have their leaves. There were Oak trees found at both sites. One interesting thing at my new spot that I did not see any signs of at my Burlington site is ivy living on the trunks of large trees. There were also more bushes/shrubs found at the cemetery site. Even though there are some species found at the Centennial Woods site that are not in the Cemetery Site, and there are some species found in the Cemetery Site that are not in the Centennial Woods Site, everything in nature is connected in one way or another. There are always some aspects that each environment shares, and humans interact with each site in one way or another, whether you take a trip to the cemetery and admire the natural landscape that surrounds the area, or if you are going for a run through Centennial Woods and decide to take a water break and take a minute to admire nature. Although these spots are geographically far away from each other, they are more connected and alike than you would think.
