Month: November 2019

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.