Starting off in the last week of September my spot was as full and abundant as much as anywhere else in Vermont. The past few weeks have given me the change to see what a single place over a variation of time does when the world around it starts to change. The leaves fall, animals leave or hibernate, and everything begins to turn gray as does the sky. The ground becomes harder and harder every week as the moisture leaves and the frost layer begins to build. The changes although stark are logical as many plats and animals prepare for bearing the harsh winters of the north east. The millennia of evolution have created a perfectly adapted biota to survive, and my observations reflect that.
Taking a bird’s eye view of my place and stepping up from the log that I usually sit on, there is much that I don’t regularly see from the tree cover and shrubs that surround my area. The part of woods that I observe for my spot is essentially a barrier for different land uses in such a small vicinity. It separates the sports fields, a golf course, a parking lot, and retention ponds. It’s a blind for society made from nature. As well as being a practical use, there is also an environmental use. My area acts as a barrier zone for all the water draining into the ponds coming from the east. The slight slope slows the water as it soaks into the soil as well as filtering some of the impurities before entering the body of water. On the other hand, during storms it can cause the erosion of the hillside creating intense turbidity in the water.
As everything around the area that I picked has changed, it has not. In terms of the last 80 years everything in the area surrounding my spot was most likely cleared and open. When replanted before newer development there was most likely a new forest, and this new forest was slowly destroyed only to leave a few acres surrounded by developed land for the use of man.
Trees
