The location I chose for my site at home was just inside the woods behind my house. There is a tiny “pathway” between the outside wall and the exposed ledges.

I especially enjoy this spot because those ledges continue inside my house. It is such a unique feature that not a lot of people I know have around or inside their homes. Not too far into the woods, there is a stonewall that continues on for a long time. The wall is also covered in barbed wire which was most likely used to keep livestock out of an agricultural area.

I have never explored much past the wall because I would be trespassing because it is not my family’s land. The rock ledges make for a bit of a rough terrain and rougher conditions for trees to grow on. This is one of the main differences between this site and the one I have back at UVM. The soil conditions of my Burlington site are richer and moister. Because the soil is dry and low in nutrients because of the rock being closer to the surface, Eastern white pine and yellow birch grow well behind my house because of these more extreme conditions. There was more of a story mixture at this site than in Burlington where there is not much of a midstory. When I was exploring my site, I heard no animals or squirrels like I always do in my site in Burlington. The days have been a few degrees colder here than they have been in Burlington. When I was younger I always remember hearing woodpeckers in these woods and being able to watch them outside our kitchen window and I was going into my site expecting to see evidence of them but there was nothing and I left feeling disappointed. This site and the area around it is also habitat great for black bears. There are berry bushes that grow alongside the bank of the stream that runs off the mountain. There are also American beech trees that grow just behind the berry bushes not too far into the woods that black bear love.

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