Naturalist Perspectives Challenge 3: AWEsomeness

 For this assignment I chose to visit the chestnut tree down the street from my apartment by the local church. I sat under this tree for a while as I basked in its glory and beautiful changing colors. I chose this spot because it made me feel awe the first time I walked by at the beginning of the year. I find it beautiful that chestnuts have an outer shell that is spikey to protect them, even though they are hard nuts anyway. Going back to this spot only cause me more awe, because the leaves had changed from green to red since the last time I checked. There were even more chestnuts on the floor than I recall, probably due to the fall, and this was even more beautiful than I could have imagined. This initially cause me awe because I never saw these spiked shells before, but when I opened them and did my research it was simply chestnuts! I believe this caused me to feel awe due to the impressive nature of how chestnuts are grown. Like Keltner says, humans are so caught up indoors these days that we do not realize the simple beauty that is right in front of us. If I were to look around more often I would probably see more chestnut trees in the area. Since it is getting colder it is important to experience awe through nature to stay healthy and happy.

Naturalist Perspectives Assignment: Comparisons

After revisiting all of my sites after a rainy day, I looked at them in a very different light. Now that we are in the midst of the cold weather the plants are reacting very differently.
Site Alpha
At Sight Alpha I tried to redo my first transect, starting at the grass and going towards the garden. From the beginning I saw a spot where humans interacted with this environment, sadly by littering. There was a cough drop wrapper right where my transect began, but other than that the garden seemed untouched. I posted the photos below in order of first to last section of my transect. As you may be able to see, many of the flowers are withering and the sprouts seem to be saggy, along with a vast amount of leaves now in the garden from the tree above. Some of the Zinnas and Black eyed susans still have some of their petals, but they're not in tip top shape. The lavender- like flowers lost most of their petals and are now mainly just stems. The change that stood out to me most was the human places ricolla wrapper,  but the fact that some of the flowers were dead and leaves were on them was more significant to the enviroment.

Sight Beta

I had trouble choosing just one transect spot for my sight beta since there was a lot of space on top of the hill in my back yard, so I decided to perform two. The first one was closest to my door, where the refrigerator has been sitting for months and there are new empty beer cans there as well. Although the trees looked beautiful with their colorful leaves, the amount of man made trash is not. Since the garbage cans for the buildings are at the bottom of this hill, trash ends up on the hill when careless renters fail to make it into the trash can. Below are 3 photos of the separate sections of my transect. The further up the hill I went, farther and farther away from the trash there was more and more moss on the floor. I don't know if this is due to the recent rain or if it was always there, but I had not noticed it before. Even though I've been looking at plants that are dying for the season all day, this moss gave me home that human kind can not destroy it's home no matter how hard we try.  

On the other hand, the opposite side of the hill held another interesting observation that I had to add. It seemed as if people were cutting down the trees on the hill, because there was a pile of smoothly cut trees against the fence that separates our property along with some random pieces of wood. I only hope that this tree had an infection and that is why they had to cut it down, because the wood was left there after as if it was useless. I do not know what the slab of man made wood slices could have been, but somehow it found its way back home. Below are pictures of my sight beta transect 2.

Sight Gamma

My last sight was hard to find a transect because it was a boring landscape, but I chose to observe the area right outside my window, on my side of the building. To begin, the pumpkin that was sitting there previously was almost diminished, leaving only small pieces behind. In was extremely moldy and broken into pieces as if someone knocked it off of the ledge. The weeds were still alive, but there was now an empty pack of cigarettes next to the pumpkin, yet another form of humans littering. Of course there were cigarette butts next to them, along with the rocks and dirt that remained from my last visitation. Just like the other spots, it is pretty similar, but with a lot more colorful leaves on the ground that fell from the trees near by. Below are photos of my transect. 

 

On the other side of the building, there is a tree that changed color immensely since my last visit. I chose to do a transect by the pumpkin and cigarettes because I found it more interesting, but the change in season really showed through the tree near by.

 

All in all, these areas are different because they all depict different areas of life and how different humans interact with this nature, but they are all one in the same. They all have trees present and many leaves on the ground due to fall, there is dirt as a base for every landscape and greenery growing in every spot wether intentional or not. Even though they all have their significant specialties like a garden with a cough drop wrapper; beer cans, a broken refrigerator and a stack of sticks; or a rotten pumpkin with an empty pack of cigarettes and rocks; they all represent the same thing. Each area shows how humans may disregard the nature around them and litter on it, but it continues to grow and due its thing through rain or shine. Being in a heavily populated place it is hard to find a place that is not covered in trash, but educating the people around you on how it can hurt the living beings around them is one way to try and make a change.