Centennial Woods Phenology

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I write this with the immediate thought that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. By this I mean that within this time of isolation everything that was once simple and boring has become exciting and entrancing.

Within the past month I have found it exceedingly difficult to get outside. Stress from school work has kept me glued to my chair and and free time has been dedicated to the mindless activity of watching Netflix. I should want to go out more and explore, but it seems that even in quarantine I am always crunched for time.

I have made the connection that when it is sunny outside I feel more productive when doing school work and when it it rainy all I want to do is watch more T.V. The ironic thing is that when it’s a nice day out I stay in because I feel productive and when it rainy and cold and unwelcoming I get the urge to go for a walk.

My outdoor excursions from the past month have consisted of a handful of walks, a hike, laying in the yard, and kayaking at the pond down the street. During all of these outings I have found beauty in the things I had never real paid attention to before. On a walk I noticed how well I can see the sunset from a hill two houses up the road from me. On another walk I noticed how many trees that we have lining the streets in this neighborhood. This is something that I never saw in Burlington.

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Another time I noticed the lack of houses for a stretch of road a couple of streets over from mine. Around here people tend to have large plots of land spaced out across the street, but this gap was too big for it to be owned by someone. There were little signs nailed to the trees that said that area was a Wildlife Conservation Easement which explained where there were no houses. What confused my though is that it also said that the area was open to hunting, fished, and trapping. If this is a protected area why would the town still allow for people to traipse through the area? I’m assuming is protected because of some threatened species, so why still allow human involvement? It also made no sense since there is no where for people to park. It was a straight and narrow road that wouldn’t have room for people to leave their cars for hours. I am curious as to what Pepperell’s thought process was with this sets of restrictions and allowances, but I wouldn’t even know who to ask about it.

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Normally on a walk I wouldn’t have paid any attention to that sign. I wouldn’t have seen the sunset on the hill. I wouldn’t have laid down in the kayak in the middle of the pond and just stared at the sky. During this time I have been able to gain more appreciation for the little things is nature. Sometimes theres more to life than just school, work, and staying inside your room. You have to get outside to see all the things you’ve been missing in the world. With that in mind I say goodbye to April and thank it for the little discoveries it gave me.

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Week of May 24^th– 31^st

Under the umbrella of quarantine, my communication with nature has become limited. There is no longer a reason to go outside to walk to get to classes and it is easy to find yourself distracted in the comfort of your own home. Sometimes you forget to give yourself a chance to breath fresh air, but when you do, it feels amazing.

On March 26^th I went for a walk in my backyard which mainly consists of woods. The farther you go back into the woods there is evidence of a metal fence my dad installed when I was little.

In case I ran off, my parents wanted to make sure that I didn’t go into the depth of the woods that goes for a couple of miles. When I was out there, I noticed that this expanse of forest was much denser that other forested areas I’ve seen because it has had almost no human interference. No trails for walking were cleared and there weren’t any rock walls or trash left behind. There were no clearings, no tree markings, just thick and full woods so dense that almost the whole forest floor was shaded. I also noticed that there were a lot of dead trees, both standing and fallen. Since there is such a high forest density there is more competition for sunlight which ends with a fair amount of dead plant matter. The leaves that covered the ground underneath the thin layer of snow were bouncy from the lack of interaction to compress them.

It was evident though that animals trek through this area whether often or not. There was a deer print that wasn’t too deep into the woods that made its presence very clear to my eyes.

There have also been four different occasions in the past two weeks or so where I have gone for runs and it has helped me to see how fast the weather has been changing here. The first time I went for a run it was 40 degrees with no precipitation and then the next day we got an inch of snow. A couple of days later it was almost 60 degrees and running in a sweatshirt and leggings became suffocating. Two days after that it was freezing with a light mist and strong winds. Most recently it has been 60 degrees again in the peak of the day with a warm blazing sunshine. The air has started to smell like spring too which I welcome with open arms.

These unforeseen circumstances of having to move back home have left me to appreciate the little things more. Waking up early and seeing the sun rise is calming and going for a run in the cool evening air leaves you wanting to breath more, not only because you need oxygen, but because the crispness in the air is refreshing.

Yesterday while visiting my site in centennial woods it was gorgeously balmy, with it being fifty degrees. The snow had become slightly slushy from melting and the brook was flowing heavily from the newly melted ice integrating pack into the flow of the stream. Since I had last been there though, ice had formed over the top of the stream, but was now just a thin veil over the gushing of the water. The only noises to be heard at 5 o’clock were the F-35 jets that passed by overhead and the rushing of the water. They high amount of human activity could be seen in the compression of the snow on the path and the slush that was created by slipping shoes. There was much more snow during this visit than there had been the last. There were also many more noticeable dog paw prints scattered in the snow which was interesting.

From the human eye a lot of animals that frequent the forest are unseen. We usually just see the path that we’re on, the snow that covers the ground, and the trees that surround us. One animal that will show itself to humans pretty frequently though is the squirrel. Most commonly seen in Vermont is the gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) which is usually found in hardwood stands (Vermont Fish and Wildlife, 2020). In this part of centennial, there are many American Beech, Red Maple, and Sugar Maple trees which are well liked by the gray squirrel.

A source of water such as a pond or stream is something important that needs to be established near a squirrel’s sleeping site. This time of year, squirrels sleep in dens or in other holes such as those from abandoned woodpeckers (Vermont Fish and Wildlife, 2020). The area just has to be small enough so a raccoon can’t fit through because that is one of their predators since they can carry round worm which is deadly to squirrels (McMillan-Gamber. C, 2010). The raccoon is not directly a predator, but the parasite it carries is a threat. Other animals such as owls or hawks are also a threat to squirrels.

For food, squirrels like seed producing trees such as hickory, oak, and beech. Oak trees produce acorns, so oak is the most common tree for a squirrel find itself near. There was a lack of both acorns and oak trees at my site so in turn there was a lack of tracks. Since the area wasn’t fully canopied this area could have just been a passing through spot for many squirrels to get water and scout the area. The squirrels like to be in heavily canopied areas of the forest because it helps them to better hide from predators. The potential tracks could have also melted away since the day had been very warm for February. The identifying evidence that there had been squirrels in the area was the fact that there was bark strewn across the top layer of snow. There was also some shredded bark in between the trunks of three trees that was easily seen because of the snow. Another tree showed heavy animal interaction since almost all of its bark was scratched away. The scratching would be due to either an animal climbing up the tree or from another animal trying to get to an insect of some sort in the bark. Scratching bark would also leave behind a scent so it could be used to mark a territory. There were also signs of termites in the meat of the tree once all the bark was stripped away. This could have been from the gray squirrel or other animals in the area such as a gray fox or an eastern coyote (communication, McDonald, M. 2020) .

Citations:

Gray Squirrel. (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2020, from https://vtfishandwildlife.com/node/596

McDonald, 2020, Natural Resources and Human Ecology 002, lecture notes, University of Vermont, delivered January 2020.

McMILLAN-GAMBER, C. L. Y. D. E., & Nature’s Beauties & Intrigues. (2010, September 26). Tracking the predators of gray squirrels. Retrieved from https://lancasteronline.com/features/tracking-the-predators-of-gray-squirrels/article_9338f66c-9f8a-5e40-8ccd-d88cb7305b31.html

I have lived in Pepperell Massachusetts all my life and to say the least it has been underwhelming at times. The population of the town is 12,000 which is relatively small and my graduating class from high school consisted of 180 students and we had a regional high school with two other towns. There are five pizza places and two Chinese food places in a ten-mile radius and the only store open past nine is the Cumberland farms. I have felt restricted in this town my whole life and have been waiting for the moment when I could leave it all behind. Even after being gone for three months I have found that nothing has changed in the entirety of this town and that I prefer change over stagnant living. One thing I have found and missed about my hometown though is the opportunity for exploration.

            One of the popular things about Pepperell is that we are in the middle of the rail trail which is a twenty-mile trail that crosses through three different towns and is used for biking, roller skating, walking or running. This is the biggest, but not the only trail in the town. After you’ve lived here for long enough, you’ll notice random wooden signs with two posts and white writing. These are all for different trail entrances and I have only recently found that there are sixteen different trails in Pepperell. One of them I have walked many times during the late Spring, and it surrounds Heald Pond. This pond is a thirty second drive from my house and has been something I’ve driven past practically every day of my life. It is stagnant, ridden with beavers and prone to algae blooms, but it still reminds me a lot of home. It is also the biggest representation of my sense of place from where I have grown up. My sense of place is defined by water and the presence of lakes, oceans and ponds. From the time I was very little that pond was my first introduction to any type of open water and is there for the first spot where I felt my sense of place. Years after we took family vacation to Maine and stayed on the ocean or to random lakes in Vermont, but Heald Pond will always be the first spot where I could define some feeling of home or like I belonged there.

            I have mentioned how my town is absent of any type of change which is normally something that bothers me and I strive for some in-congruency, but the fact that the pond doesn’t change is somewhat reassuring. It changes, but it is always consistent. For example in the winter the whole pond always freezes over so you can ice-skate, in the spring the beavers make more dams and in the summer the algae blooms start since the pond is in a huge value and will take in excess nutrients from all the places that surround it. Despite all the devastating ecological changes we are facing all over the world I find comfort in the fact that this pond never strays from its normal patterns and remains the same in its phases of change. Heald Pond is my symbol of home, so I hope it never changes.

My sense of place is defined by the presence of water in any given area. I feel more alive and comfortable when I am surrounded by lakes, streams, ponds, and the ocean. In this location of centennial, the water presence is on a much smaller scale, but I still feel the same sense of connectedness with the area, and that’s why I gravitated towards it to study. The stream itself has gone through many changes since my first visit. The first time consisted of very slow-moving water which was clogged by leaf litter and then the second visit consisted of over flowed and expanding stream beds. Rocks from upstream and along the expanded stream bed had been pulled down stream and created a pile. The water had been moving so fast before that it carved little caverns in the soil underneath the tree roots and flattened grass. Now the water flows at a more normal speed, fats but not fast enough to move rocks or form ridges in the soil. It also has a smaller and more manageable volume now. The area is still slightly muddy in general though.

            One thing that was very different from the last time that I just noticed was that there where at least a couple hundred little fish that hid in the shadows of the water or in the slow-moving parts. Some were very small while others were a little bit larger and the length of a pen. They all blended in with the soil bed, so they were difficult to see if you weren’t looking for them and they swam in groups.

            In the larger sense I find my sense of place to remain the most intact when in New England. This is because I have lived in New England and vacationed in New England practically my whole life. On the other hand, though, there is water practically everywhere. Whether it is in a state that is land locked or on an island, every state and country have some source of water whether it’s a lake, a stream, a marsh, or an ocean. I can find my sense of place anywhere from the stream in centennial woods, to Lake Champlain in Vermont, to my hometown in Pepperell Massachusetts, to the marshes of New Orleans.

            At another point in time the stream that exists here could have been much more bountiful and full of life. I envision it being very heavy flowing with many different kinds or fish. I also picture less trees in the area and the stream being a water source for the sheep that once roamed the region. There are stone walls deeper in the woods that signal there was once sheep herding in this area. Once the sheep business lost popularity the woods became woods again. The trees flourished and now the area is protected from deforestation and development, but the little stream is depleted. I find myself at home here and everywhere that I can find my sense of place which is a water source.

The stream is much more active than it was a few weeks ago. Rain flooded the area and abolished what was once an almost stagnant flow. Any leaf litter that clogged the stream had been washed away and the banks were bristling with overflow. The stream had become so strong and pulsing that it reconfigured the formation of the bridges. One can only assume they had been washed away and someone moved then to a different location. They aren’t far from their original spot, but it’s still a very different formation and a very different feel to the area with such heavy amounts of water rushing through. The day was clear and slightly warm with intermittent breezes. Birds had dropped in number since less calls could be heard. In addition to the stream overflowing from the storm, the soil was moist and muddy all along the bank and in several spots leading up to the area. That last visit had proved to be much dryer. Considering the fact that the leaf litter had dissipated from the stream, so had almost all the leaves from the trees. There was one lone red maple that was still holding on to some of its yellow turned leaves.

         Regarding the life left in the area, there was one plant that seemed to be an invasive species that was still releasing fluffy seeds into the air. It was some form of golden rod, but it dominated the different parts of the banks. The few green ash’s in the area had lost their leaves, as well as the buckthorn which had been a defining feature along the bridge before the bridge floated to a different location. There was a section of barberry bush which had lost its leaves but was still holding on to a few red berry’s. Some organisms such as moss, lichens, and fungi, had yet to succumb to the impending cold or heavy rains. The fungi were identified as a tinder or hoof fungus since the shape the fungus grows into is similar to that of a horse’s hoof. They are pretty strong-willed organisms and were all found attached to different trees in the area, one being the red maple. One organism that is not common to the area but was there at the time of observation was my dog Cleo. You can see her by the stream pictured here.

         The act of mapping the area before making another visit helped for me to see the big picture changes in the area since I had last been there. The change in water levels was the biggest difference, but the changing of attached leaves in trees and smaller bushes came to mind after coming back from another visit. The map helped me to see how much one spot can be affected or even unaffected over time and throughout the changing of seasons and influences of nature. Some places that you walk past every day and don’t seem any different over time, but when there is one place that you cataloged the changes of, it is clear that over time that are major parts of the landscape that are changing such as the composition of the stream bed and the visual forms of the vegetation in the area. In a way I feel more connected with the area since I have invested so much time in seeing how it has progressed over time.

The walk to the brook is serene. The entrance to the woods is denoted with a sign that says Centennial and is located just past the campus police station. The walk through the woods is dotted with red leaves. There are some that are freshly fallen and some that have long since ventured to the ground and have begun to break down. It is also noted that the entrance to the path has a partial fallen tree, so you know you are going in the right direction. The path is broken up in places by wooden planks that act as bridges. With the season change the air has become crisp even in the early evening air. The temperature is slowly declining but as of now it sits at 62°F. At the first option to choose a different path a left is taken and then at the second opportunity the right one is chosen. This then brings you to the miniscule and lazy stream. You know you’re there right after you descend from the longest bridge and it is just before the clearing that is uphill. It should take no more than fifteen minutes to get to the area when taking a leisurely walk. The walk should also be taken slowly and with attention carefully paid to the surroundings. If you walk to fast you miss out on half of the experience.

When sitting on the bridge by the stream it is easy to find your consciousness is a state of clarity. White noise form interstate can be heard in the distance and a few birds chirping here and there. The leaves rustle, fall, and inhibit the steady flow of the stream. A majority of the leaves in this spot are yellow and green ash shadows the ground. Leaves practically blanket the ground and create a crunchy thicket. This is a place of wholesome nature that can only be disturbed my noise pollution. I found that this visit was best represented by an abstract drawing that just pin points the main colors and things that I focused on while sitting there. For future reference this spot would be suggested for drawing, listening to music, napping, coloring, or anything else of a peaceful nature. It is a place of tranquility and is the perfect spot to write about.