Week Nine

Saturday June 7, 2014

Mostly Sunny

70 Degrees

2:21 PM

Ravenna Park Erratic

 1) Phenological Observation
          The before and after of my site shows you just how much things can change over time the top picture was from week one of our journals and the bottom picture is from week 7 of our journals. It is incredible to think how much the scene changes in just 7 weeks time and it is amazing to think that this is the same kind of transformation that happens every year and you never even seem to notice how remarkable it is that there is so much variation.

         As the quarter progressed you could feel the changes in the park, it was not just a visible change but it was a change that was indicated by all your senses, sight, smell, sound, even feel. There were more birds calling as the spring began to roll in, there was an obvious and vigorous chafe in the surrounding landscape from a soaked more bare environment to a lush warmer and soft looking vegetative cover. The smells of the winter rain and the clean cold air was replaced by the sweet smell of spring flowers and warmer air would fill your nostrils and make it seem as though you were breathing in a thick liquid of sweet tea mixed with the freshness of the clean air. The temperature raised and I went from needing a coat and sweatshirt to being comfortable in a t-shirt and shorts in the park and the air and environment just registered as being different as the spring progressed you can feel it in your gut, feel it in your skin, in your mouth the seasons are changing. They always are but is very rarely that one pays close attention to these changes on more than just a visual level. For me the greatest part of the changes was being able to be totally immersed in them, even if it was just for an hour or two when I was recording notes for the journal it still mattered, felt relevant and significant to being alive and feeling alive.

2) On Site Reflection and Interaction
          For the second part of entry nine i focused on my region with the aim to try and capture the beauty in a different light so the following is a description of the 3 organisms assigned, in the order as they were assigned and they are followed by one entry that ttys to capture the sight in general.

(a) From the carpet of the forest floor it sprouts tall, green, lush, and soft. Curves like a lady and as pretty as one too. She droops her head over the creek and smiles back at you, with not one but many arms luring you in.

(b) The chaos of the forest seems to sit upon this guys backs he is wary of every movement or sound. His black hat seems to tremble from the energy within him, then with a gust of wind he departs through the sky of green.

(c) It bounces up and down the tree, dancing its way back and fourth. Its brown tail fuzzy and soft flickers then stops, becoming ridged and completely still. It scuttles left, then right, seemingly changing its mind 100 times on which, where, when to go, move, jump. Then as if it had been awaiting this moment its quick movements become one dash and it is gone.

For the Site:

          I wish this place I sit, I wish it were larger, louder, and vaster; not with the sounds of my brothers and sisters but with the sounds of theirs. The sounds so great the could drown me, smash me, compress my being into something so minuscule it'd barely exist. Like a single atom, I'd be immeasurable. But here it just barely casts its shadow, it just barely puts a dent in ones mind though its beauty is many times that of its surrounding. It is something raw, refreshing and real, and though it is just a fraction of its glory it withholds the power to grow and dominate again. My fear is that we will never accept this, and as a result, suffer her consequences.

3) Final Reflection

1) How has your perception of your observation site changed through the quarter?

          As the quarter has progressed I feel that I have grown with my observation site at first things felt very familiar to me and being at my site was not a subject of much excitement, I did feel like something was missing I was looking for more knowledge, as we learned more and more about the different species and organisms  in the area I became more interested in my area. This ran contrary to how I figured the class would go I thought i would get bored going back to the site many times in a row, but after learning what to look for it opened to doors more and more and made me feel like each time back to the site was an opportunity to learn more about the site than just what meets the eye. As we moved on through the quarter i became more and more excited to learn about my site from the trees and plants that occupied it all the way down to the smallest of invertebrates that occupied it. I was stoked to look at the site and see that I viewed it in a new light with each return and I became more curious and would spend more time at each return. The way the class is set up it give you a focus for each time you get to your site and this helps you not get too off track but helps you to focus on learning a few specific things rather than trying to learn the whole site in one day. This is something I feel helps a lot to make the idea of learning so many new things seem not overwhelming and it provokes interest!

2) How has your sense of the Puget Sound Region changed through the quarter?

          Too often do we take this place we live for granted, we see the Puget Sound as this thing that is just beauty at our disposal we do not realize how important the area is to our native wildlife and vegetation and as a result we do not treat the Puget Sound with the respect and care that it needs and deserves. This being said I have always known that the Puget Sound was important, from the time i was little I was lucky to have parents that stressed the beauty of the place we lived, the importance of the  area we are in and how it relates to the rest of the world. No where on earth is there another estuary type inlet as large or as significant as the puget sound with such rich diversity and beauty. There are mountain ranges that surround the Sound on each side draining their snowmelt down into the saltwater inlet promoting a very unique set of circumstances that happen to support a thriving and vast spread of life. For me I feel that my sense of Puget Sound has not changed, as I have always and will always value it very highly and with respect, but now I feel as though further education about the Sound has helped me to learn some new things that can help me appreciate it more completely and the things we have learned have reinvigorated my sense of appreciation for the place we live. I am proud to be from this area and proud to know the Puget Sound region better as a result of this class however I am worried that there will be too much human impact on the region to keep it safe and clean for the continued support of its diversity. In taking this class I feel I have learned some valuable things that will help me to understand how we can go about helping maintain the beauty of the Puget Sound and how we can pass this remarkable place on to our children without ruining it.

3) What does it mean to intimately know a natural place? (Think about this question in terms of the process and the outcome. Also think about it in terms of scale—you have done close observation of one site, as well as developed broader appreciation on field trips around the Puget Sound).

          To intimately know a place involves understanding it at its deepest roots this means you cannot just look at the place and say you know it, you have to live with it experience it and see it change and react, adapt and renew. You need to know what species live in that place and how they are linked and affected by transformations of that place. You need to see the whole picture and know what others do not. I don't know if it is entirely possible to completely know a place you could spend your whole life dedicated to it and still find something new. But to know a place intimately entails being willing to experience the discovery of new things and learn from the place. For example I would not say I know Ravenna Park, my site, intimately, I would say I am close but there is still more I need to know and I would need to see and be present for more phenological changes. You can't be just physically present but you have to be mentally aware as well, standing in the middle of the park and not paying attention will do you no good. Knowing the Puget Sound very well I feel I value the place intimately but i do not necessarily know it as such. I feel there are different ways to look at this question but the idea for me is that to intimately know a place you must understand nearly all of the interactions that take place, this is something that would take a very long time, and even myself being a life long resident of the Puget Sound I value this place with intimacy but I do not feel I know it as such. There is still many things that I have to learn about this place and things that are changing and are not totally understood. The more I practice this study of place though the closer I become to knowing my surroundings intimately and I can say comfortably that I relate and interact with the surroundings in an intimate manner even though I may not know them as such.

Week Eight (Field Trip, East side of Cascades)

Saturday May 31, 2014
Eastern Washington Field Trip
Mostly Sunny and Warm

         Today our class went on a day field trip to eastern Washington just on the other side of the cascades we were not all the way in eastern Washington but in a unique location on the canyon river road between Ellensburg and Yakima. Our trip consisted of 3 stops and each one had a unique ecosystem. The trip was very fun and we learned a lot of new species as well as getting to experience a new ecosystem.
         The first stop along the trip was at Untanum Creek, this spot had a long trail that went up along the creek bed of one of the feeder creeks for the Yakima river. It was very hot and there seemed to be a sense of protection as we were moving further into another canyon between two ridges. As we walked up the trail we got to learn a lot of species. Some of the ones that stuck out where the Sagebrush, Brittle-brush, Mountain Chickadee, Prickly Pear Cactus, Western Bluebird, and the Lazuli Bunting. As we worked our way up the path we stopped at multiple locations to look at the many different organisms that were around.
          The second stop along the way was up near Manastash ridge and was high enough that you could tell there was significantly more exposure, the air was colder and the plants were all smaller and stiffer. One of the species that is very indicative of this area was the Stiff Sagebrush. This smaller more compact version of sagebrush is designed to thrive in the higher winds and more exposed high plateau like surface that we were on. In addition to this many other shrubs were composed of thicker stalks and more water resilient leaves. The way the vegetation was designed was to maximize its chance of survival in the hot desert like conditions of the summer and the snow and little rain fall of the winter, their were no trees to hide behind for this vegetation and this was apparent. There were however a few pockets of trees along the ridge in the distance and it was cool to see the different vegetation pockets that were determined by such simple things as aspect and slope. One of my favorite interactions at the second location was finding a Horned Lizard and I was lucky enough to catch him and show him to the class this was something that invigorated me and made me excited to be able to be out on the field trip and gave me a renewed sense of interest from a different perspective  than just witnessing them.
          Finally our last stop was at another small creek this time we had dropped some altitude and were on a slope that was facing the sun because there was enough light and water around for there to be trees. We followed this creek much further than the first one and came across a Gopher Snake, which we could not successfully catch. As we moved further down the creek the vegetation in the area would remind you of the west side of the cascades as it was so lush. There was Quaking Aspen which we learned is the biggest organism in the world and there was all sorts of familiar as well as unfamiliar vegetation lining the creek.
         Overall the trip was very intriguing and I learned a lot, I felt like there is a whole different community of ecosystems and organisms on the other side of the mountains. It was amazing that we could see 3 completely different levels of vegetations in the same trip from the barren and exposed top of the ridge to the high shrubs of the Untanum Creek and then the nearly west side-esque creek that we closed our trip at. Below are some of the photos I got before my camera died, I would like to go back and get more pictures of the different species on the east side.

 Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata)

Sagebrush is a rounded gnarled shrub with small leaves that are 3 lobed on the tip. It is a fuzzy gray green and has a very sharp spicy district smell. The seems are brown and shreddy, in the fall it will bloom tiny yellow flowers and it is commonly found in steppes to higher elevation dry meadows. This is a very important shrub for the species of the area and provides both food and shelter for organisms.

 Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia fragilis)

The Fragile Prickly Pear or Prickly Pear Cactus is a flowering cactus we found a lot of these but only a few were in bloom. They have yellow greenish flowers with many petals and red staked stamen in the centers. It is commonly found east of the cascades in dryer areas and is in bloom from May-June.

 Bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata)

Bitterbrush is a stiff bushy shrub with leaves very similar to that of the sagebrush in that they are 3 lobed but these leaves have more significant lobes and are rolled under the edges with white hairy undersides. Its flowers are funnel shaped with 5 petals and it blooms from april to june. If you find sagebrush you are likely to find this plant as well because they are both found on steppes, you may also find this shrub in some forests.

 Butterfly Western Tailed-Blue (Everes amyntula)

This species of butterfly is found near streams or mountainsides and meadows. It a pale blue almost grayish in color and has thin stripes or spots that are black. It is a low flying organism and we found this on because it first landed on my shoe then flew into the grass right next to us. In the photo to the left it is almost dead center and is outside the major shadow in the picture (almost looks like a rock) its color allowed it to blend in very well with the surroundings.