Centennial Woods Map
(Vidal, E. 2002). From Wilderness in Our Midst: Stories of Centennial Woods: a Senior Thesis, with digital edit by Kevin Melman.
My phenology spot is located within the orange circle, which shows its proximity to the ROTC bunker.
In an attempt to dig through the history of Centennial Woods, I came upon Wilderness in Our Midst: Stories of Centennial Woods: a Senior Thesis written by Elaine Vidal in 2002. In this book is a small section of background information regarding a concrete structure near my phenology spot that was once an ROTC bunker. Apparently, the case was the soldiers sat in the bunker overlooking the cattail marsh and “back in World War I, they used to shoot across the valley,” most likely for rifle practice (Vidal 2002). This gave me the image of old bullets and shells littered throughout the marsh. I began to think about what consequences that could that have led to: Lead that leached from old bullets, animals that consumed pieces of metal or used them to build homes, trees that have grown over bullets lodged within them, leaving only but a burl for us to see. Whatever was done at the phenology site, all I can think now is whether there should be continued land use within it.
I began to ponder on what could make this phenology spot even better, and I thought since in the warm seasons, its difficult to even get across the brook to the cattail marsh, why not create a small boardwalk that goes partly into the thick cattails and grasses? It wouldn’t need to go all the way through, but just enough to lead one to the edge of the marsh, perhaps with a small viewing area built there. This way, one can observe wildlife there, such as Red-winged Blackbirds nesting within the cattails, which is a common place for them to do so. Though, I created a diagram to show how one thing can create many reaction within various components of the environment.
Works Cited:
Vidal, Elaine. Wildness in Our Midst : Stories of Centennial Woods : a Senior Thesis. N.p.: UVM Voyager, 2002. Print.
All photos are by the author (Kevin Melman) unless specified otherwise