I sat on one of the fallen logs at my site. It was cold on October 29th, and the air had a stillness to it, in contrast to the day before. I could see and hear many winged things today. A small airplane, a barred owl, geese, a flock of chickadees, and the occasional falling hemlock seed. The usual echo of traffic was audible, of course, and there was never complete silence. I kept my hands warm in my sweater pockets as I took in the surroundings.
All of the deciduous trees, save for the beech, seem to be past their peak foliage. Old needles from the White Pine and colorful hardwood leaves are trapped by the dense foliage of the hemlocks. The beech trees are further up the hillside behind my seat, so most of the color in my field of view is either on the ground or in the hemlocks. There is an elm of some sort in the swamp where the log sits, which still has a few yellow leaves clung to it. The invasive species in the woodland are finally starting to go into dormancy, which for my site includes the ghostly whitening burning bush next to the Ash and the yellowing buckthorn down in the swamp. Ferns on the hillside are turning white as well, and it is clear that many of the herbs in the muck have completed their lifecycles. The woods are opening up for the winter, and more light seems to be reaching the forest floor even as the days get shorter. I no longer worry about the trees shading my evening walks, and for now highlighted at my site are the brilliant golden beeches, the dark green Christmas ferns on the forest floor, and the towering hemlocks.
This is the map I drew for my site. Circles are used to represent the trunks of standing trees, and are not completely accurate. I have labeled the Ash. Most of the others are Eastern Hemlock. Downed trees are drawn as they appear above. The path is marked to distinguish it from the rough contour lines that I drew. The lowest elevation is found at the level of the small and large streams. The ‘island’ in the middle of the floodplain is the only place within it where trees seem to have grown sturdily. I drew in some of the shrubs growing in the swamp, which is what the wavy lines represent. The largest fallen log toward the center of the map is where I sat.