A Little Trail in Norway Valley

This time I heard it in a loud drumming. It echoed through the trees. I turned instinctively toward it. I couldn’t see where it was coming from, but I moved closer. It sounded… familiar. But I shook my head. I was probably just distorting it in my mind. I wanted to see a particular bird, so it sounded like that bird. But there were many kinds of woodpeckers here.

It wasn’t until it called that I really got excited.

I knew that trill was a Pileated Woodpecker. My instinct had been correct. The drumming really was that loud. I had just second-guessed myself.

I didn’t actually see it, but it still raised my spirits. I honestly didn’t expect to see it. I rarely do see Pileated Woodpeckers, even when I hear them. It’s kind of a joke I have with myself at this point. They’re always nearby, but never in my line of sight. That’s okay. When I catch a glimpse it’s pretty amazing. And in the meantime, I still like to hear them.

There are five kinds of woodpeckers that you’re likely to see on campus. The most common is the downy woodpecker, which I’ve often seen even in the quad. Though, for all the times I’ve seen a downy woodpecker, it’s possible that I was actually looking at a Hairy Woodpecker. They look nearly identical. The main way to tell the difference is by size.

You’re also likely to see a red-bellied woodpecker if you’re keeping an eye out. They have bright red on their heads, despite their name, and are often in Norway Valley and behind Regents.  I’ve also seen a fair amount of Northern Flickers in that area, which are also a kind of woodpecker.

The last kind that is common on campus, is the Pileated Woodpecker, though you’re not as likely to actually see it as the rest. I’m not sure how many live on campus, but at least one lives in Norway Valley. They’re much larger than the other woodpeckers, and so the habitat can’t support as many of them. I have seen a Pileated Woodpecker twice in my life, both times on campus. Once, during my ornithology class, and once when I was with my uncle in the Larson Parking Lot.

Maybe I’ll get another glance at one during my plot project. I know that it’s here. I’ve heard it. I can see the evidence that it lives here. I think my plot is probably one of its favorite places to be. The large cavities in the trees are all along the trail. In most other areas I’ve spent time in I haven’t seen any. 

I haven’t seen a Pileated Woodpecker during my plot project, but I’ve seen lots of Red-bellied and Downy woodpeckers. I sat and watched them for a while on my second visit to the plot. I found a log that I decided would be a good spot to spend my time during the plot projects. It’s right off the path and I can sit on it comfortably.

I watched the woodpeckers for a while. There was a red-bellied and two downy woodpeckers hanging around that day. One of the downies was a female, and one a male. They were probably mates, and they made little short calls back and forth. They were probably communicating where the best food was, and possibly warning each other about the human sitting on the log.

The red-bellied woodpecker twisted around the trunk of one of the trees. I sketched it’s movements in my journal. It drilled as it went, until it reached a spot higher on the trunk and then it came to a halt. It drilled and drilled. I’m not sure how long it drilled there. It must have found something good, because it stayed there a long time.

The downies also moved around this way before settling in a spot. They were more flexible, though. They also pecked along the branches, not just on the trunk. The male found a spot along a branch where he drilled for a while, hanging upside down. I watched him, listening to his soft drilling into the wood. I compared it to the louder drilling from the red bellied woodpecker a few trees over.

“Dock-dock-dock-dock-dock”

“Thwack-Thwack-Thwack!”

I listened for a while to the way the sounds echoed through the forest.

There were fewer birds on the third visit. They were around, but a little further from my sight and harder to observe.

There were of course, plenty of squirrels. There are always plenty of squirrels on campus.

I like the squirrels a lot. People joke about how many there are at St. Olaf sometimes. I do as well, but I don’t think people actually pay them much attention.

I like to watch them. I watch them a lot, even just when I walk past them on the way to dinner. As long as you don’t watch them too obviously, they usually ignore you.

They’re quite noisy actually when you’re sitting in Norway Valley on a very quiet day. Even when they’re too far for me to see, I can hear them foraging, rustling the leaves as they go. They also like to chatter. Sometimes they’ll just make noises out to the forest. Sometimes the chatter is an argument between two squirrels, who I’ll see chasing each other through the leaf litter.

The squirrels on campus are usually gray squirrels. Those are the ones that hang out in the quad, so close to people. But there are also a lot of red squirrels on campus. They’re smaller and much more red, with little tufts on their ears. They are much less tolerant of people.

I see them the most on the stretch of lawn behind hoyme, and in Norway Valley. Funnily enough, I don’t see them as much by my plot. They’re usually closer to regents, where I practically never go without seeing one.

There was one on this visit, and I watched him from my spot on the log. He was moving from tree to tree, frolicking across the ground. He moved in bounding leaps, his fluffy tail puffed out behind him. I’m not sure when he spotted me but once he did, his whole demeanor changed. He shimmied up a tree and stood there staring at me. His tail twitched a mile a minute.

He watched me for the rest of the time I sat there. He moved from tree to tree much more carefully, stopping frequently to look at me. When I stood to leave, he scrambled for the nearest tree trunk and quickly moved to the higher branches.

It’s funny, though. When the gray squirrels see you, they just want to get away. They move to wherever you can’t see them. Red squirrels don’t hide. They find a branch that they feel safe from and then they sit on it and yell at you. They're like little old ladies and little old men, yelling at you to get off their property. Really, they seem to function as alarm bells for the rest of the forest. They’re letting everyone know that you’re walking through the forest.

As I walked back toward my dorm, another red squirrel spotted me and sounded the alarm. He chittered at me threateningly from his little branch. Meanwhile, the gray squirrel who had been foraging next to him moments ago, peaked out from behind the tree trunk, watching me quietly and suspiciously.

It was too cold to be outside this time. I tried to bundle up for it, but I underestimated the weather. It was so cold, that I didn’t sit down. If I had, all of the cold from the ground would have seeped in through my clothes and into my body.

It was honestly pretty miserable. The wind would only stop long enough for me to forget about, before it would hit me with another gust. I wrapped my arms around myself and hunched my shoulders.

The birds were smarter than me. They knew it was too cold. And since they don’t have an electric heater to warm them back up afterwards, they know it’s not worth the risk. They stayed in their nests and holes. Even the squirrels were out in fewer numbers.

I didn’t really come out of it with much. I caught a flicker call with my bird ID app, and a few crows flew overhead. It was too cold to draw, though I took a few pictures. My pictures mostly look the same at the moment. Sometimes I find something I hadn’t noticed before, but it’s hard to notice anything when it’s so cold your face stings.

When it warms up, things will start growing. Hopefully I’ll be able to identify some of the plants, and there’ll be more birds. In the meantime, I should wear another jacket. I honestly like the winter and fall. I prefer it to the summer. What I look forward to the most though, is the fall and the spring. I prefer the mild weather, when things are changing and the weather is sometimes bearable. I wish I could engage with nature on days like this, but some days it just doesn’t work.

I didn’t think that there would be many birds out today because of the wind. It was a warm wind, since the weather’s changed. Between spring break and getting sick, I haven’t been to the plot in a while. When I was here last there was still a deep chill in the air. Now it’s past the time for wearing jackets or layers.

There weren’t many songbirds out, so maybe I was partially right. But there were definitely birds out. As I approached the log where I usually sit, I slowed to a stop and startled something out from behind a nearby tree.

It flew out with a squawk running through the leaves with its wings out behind it. It took me by surprise  to see such a huge bird and I didn’t pay attention to identifying marks. I quickly put my camera up in front of me and clicked it as the bird took off and flew off, disappearing behind the hill.

I think it was a turkey hen, though I’m not certain. The video I ended up taking only catches a blurry glance of it. It’s possible that it was a pheasant, but I do remember that it had dark feathers, much more like a turkey. A male turkey would have been unmistakable, but a female is less distinct. Either way it was an exciting start to my project time. I didn’t manage to find it again, though I went much further than usual hoping that I might. 

I didn’t find the turkey again, but instead I spent most of my time watching the turkey vultures. I saw them as I was walking along the trail, soaring above me. There were three of them, not circling, but floating lazily on the wind. They are firmly rooted in our culture as a dark omen, a signifier of death. Of course there’s a reason for that, they only circle when they’ve found something dead to eat.

But watching them floating back and forth, I felt a great sense of calm. They were comforting, and beautiful. Turkey vultures have beautiful jet black feathers. However, the feathers at the ends of their wings take on a slight transparency when they’re spread out against the sun. It makes them appear more gray. It’s beautiful, and is one of the things that my mind picks out immediately to know that it’s a turkey vulture.

Back in Missouri people call them buzzards. Buzzards, turkey buzzards, turkey vultures. All names that refer to the same species. I like all of them. They all seem to capture their strange charm. I’d see them all the time growing up in Missouri. I recognize them instinctually at this point, the particular shape of their wings. I’ve always been fond of them.

I did a little internet searching about them. I read lots about them once upon a time, but it’s been a long time since I did.

Their range spans across nearly the whole of North and South America, though they only go a little ways into Canada. It must be too cold up there, with their bare heads. They live in South and Central America year-round. Around here they only stay for the breeding season.

There is definitely a reason they have a reputation for being gross. I mean, they eat carrion. I used to hear that they didn’t have a sense of smell so that they could eat it. But they actually have an excellent sense of smell, which they use to find food.

Beyond just eating dead things, they have very acidic stomach acid in order to digest it. This prevents them from getting sick. This also makes their defense mechanism of vomiting on predators particularly nasty. If all that weren’t enough, they also have a practice of “defecating on themselves” to cool off in hot weather.

The fact that they eat and digest carrion though is a benefit to all of us. It prevents the spread of disease. Which people often appreciate, calling them Nature’s cleanup crew. But I think I was drawn to them regardless of this fact.

It’s not that I don’t find the things they do gross. I just don’t think that these things make them not beautiful and wonderful. I think they’re a fascinating creature all around.

The little hints of spring have started popping up. Upon first glance, the forest is still brown and gray. But there are little bits of green if you look closely. Seedlings spread across the ground, and little sprouts of grass and other plants. 

I found the first flower of the season within my plot area. I used the Minnesota Wildflowers website to identify it. The advanced search has lots of traits to enter: shape, color, leaf type, stem, habitat, etc. For this flower, I just put in the habitat, county, and color and 21 results came up. Looking quickly at the pictures, one stood out as a match. Bloodroot, sanguinaria canadensis.

The description says they are a harbinger of spring. The name is striking combined with that connotation. It says the name is based on the fact that when you break the stem, red juice bleeds from it. I think I like that actually. Spring is welcomed by the plant that bleeds. That little perfectly white sprout, with a hardy bright red root hiding beneath the soil. Appropriate for spring, when the harshness of the winter is still clinging to everything.

There is one tree along the path that is not coming back this spring. A pile of bark lies around it, strewn across the forest floor. The bark on its side is peeling away in huge strips. Toward the top of the tree, the wood is already bare and dry. All of these, signs that this tree is dead or dying. I’m not sure what kind it is. Leaves are the easiest sign to identify based on, and it will not be growing any more. I couldn’t say what killed it either. It is dead, but it’s not done giving life. Already the woodpeckers are making it their own. I can see a large hole about halfway up that looks like it might already be something’s home.

There are many homes throughout the forest. I like to spend time looking for the structures that would make a critter a nice home or resting place. There are plenty to be found. A hollowed out stump for example provides nice protection from the wind. Or perhaps a log, which might provide a better hiding place from predators. The tree roots create lots of little nooks and crannies that something small could dig out to make into a den. Sometimes, there is space within the tree itself. I found one tree that was still standing even though it was hollowed out, a large opening spiraled around the trunk to the top. I’m not sure whether this would really make a good den. Perhaps it’s too open. It’s probably too close to the path for anything too large to use it. Still, it’s fun to look at how nature is so naturally shaped to create shelter and homes for its life.

As I was looking around for these things, I found a tree that caught my attention. It was nestled right against a fallen log, and around it’s roots were sprouting up twigs. They encircled it, like a crown or a cage. They didn’t appear to be saplings or bushes, they were sprouting directly from the roots.

When I was in high school, one of my science teachers was trained in forestry. He took us out into the woods whenever he could, teaching us about the trees. I remember one day he pointed out a particular tree. On it’s side there was a cluster of tiny branches all shooting out from the same spot. He told us that it was a sign of distress in a tree, that something is wrong. They sent the shoots out to try and get more nutrients. It didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong at the moment though, it depended on how recent they had grown the cluster.

I wondered whether this tree was doing this. I didn’t see clusters along the rest of the tree. I’ve never heard of clusters looking like this. I hope that the tree is doing well.

It’s getting greener. Every time I visit there are more sprouts and patches of plants. There are also more insects and bugs. I’ve been seeing bees, butterflies, flies, and boxelder bugs. They zoom past me as I walk, and flutter through the trees. Occasionally they follow me and buzz around my head until I manage to shake them. Not exactly a pleasant reunion, but it’s still sort of nice to see them back.

There was also something much larger fluttering about the forest today. A pair of hairy woodpeckers were flying through the treetops. I was unsure what they were until one let out a loud high pitched trill as it flew overhead. The call plus the glimpse of its size and coloring confirmed that it was a hairy woodpecker. I turned to its mate which was still sitting on the branch it had flown from.

I don’t see hairy woodpeckers as often as some of the other woodpeckers. They seem a little shyer than the downy or the red-bellieds. They’re always larger than I remember. I watched the female pick her way along the branch. The male’s drilling pierced the air somewhere behind him. Much louder than the drilling of a downy woodpecker.

The two of them fluttered from branch to branch, following each other and then parting, occasionally calling back and forth. At some point I realized that they were courting. It is that time of year, I suppose. Perhaps one of the holes in the surrounding trees is their nest. 

I followed them as they performed for each other, moving further into the woods, until I reached a little path that splits off into the woods. I’ve known about this spot for a long time, but I didn’t go down it until recently.

At the end of the path is a spot on the ridge of the hill, where you can look down into the valley of Norway Valley. Now that I’ve discovered it, I spend a lot of time there. When you stand there on the ridge, you can hear every little sound echoing through the valley. Every squirrel rustling the leaves can be heard perfectly. The call of the crow sitting in the pine trees rings through the air.

Maybe it’s because I was listening so intently to all these sounds that I noticed. The wind was blowing gently through the woods, rustling the leaves across the forest floor. However, at some point I realized that even though the wind had died down the leaves were still moving.

I immediately locked my eyes on the rustling. The leaves moved in a line, far too deliberate to be the wind. There was something there.

I moved closer, breathing as quietly as possible. The rustling stopped. I stood near where I had seen it, and tried to remain still. I watched closely with my camera in hand, occasionally glancing towards other sounds around me. I almost thought that I had imagined it, until it moved again. There was definitely something there. I couldn’t say what. A mouse, or maybe a vole? The leaves shuffled as it made it’s way underneath them, hidden from sight, but undeniably there.

I never caught a glimpse of it. The tiny thing was perfectly hidden under the leaf litter. There was no way to get it to show itself. That was a matter of luck.

But I had been lucky enough to see it at all, and that was still pretty satisfying.

As I walking along the trail this day, I stopped at a spot I’d walked through many times and looked around more closely. It was toward the start of the trail, where the shining white water tower looms over you.

I had noticed before that there were little vine-like plants growing all along this section of the trail. In the winter, they had been dry and twig like, shaped in twists and curls around the various plants.

The view somehow struck me very differently this time. Where before I had just seen the plants, I was now looking at the interactions between them. I looked at these vines growing thickly around the trees and bushes, and I saw a battlefield.

The full grown trees were perfectly fine with vines climbing up their trunks. But the smaller plants, the saplings and bushes, were struggling under the plants roped around them. The vines continued growing as they do, climbing up the sides of the plants around them. They are racing towards the sun, using the much sturdier plants around them as a support beam. They climb up and up them, even as the support they rely on begins to bend with their weight. The little plants and saplings cannot support them, but they try anyway.

All of the slow-growing plants are seemingly paused to me, who cannot watch their progress unless I come back to watch them over and over. They are frozen in dynamic poses, struggling against each other. 

My curiosity is piqued, so I take a closer look at this vine. After a few moments, I am able to find some new growths of it, with tiny leaves. I pull up the Minnesota Wildflowers website to use their advanced plant search option, hoping that there’s an option for vines. There is, so I enter in the county and month, as well as the habitat. I look at the leaves, the pattern that they are attached to the branch. They come out on either side in an alternating pattern, so I enter in alternate leaf attachment

Six options pop up, and it’s easy enough to tell that most of them are not right. Their leaves are too rounded or smooth, not quite the same color. But one of them is much closer. It takes me by surprise, actually, because I am familiar with this plant. Riverbank Grape. We learned that in my botany class in the fall, but we identified it in the fall rather than in the spring. I hadn’t recognized it.

It’s a native plant. The image of vines strangling other plants makes me think of kudzu and other invasive plants that are causing destruction across the ecosystems of North America. But this is not what is happening here. This is just a natural struggle between members of the same plant community, trying to survive.

I think of the narrative I’ve often heard of vines. As parasitic plants that strangle a plant away from the light, steal nutrients from its roots. But there must be more to this story, I think. It seems strange that all vines would be parasites. Can they provide any benefit to the trees and shrubs that they depend on?

A google search doesn’t pull up anything along those lines. It’s mostly gardening advice, on why you should remove vines from the trees in your yard. I wonder though. Gardening advice usually focuses more on the welfare of individual plants than on building a plant community. I wonder whether Robin Wall Kimmerer would know more, or perhaps have a different take on the relationship. It seems like the kind of thing she would have thoughts on.

It was raining, and everything was coming up earthworms. On the way down to my project I stopped to pick one up off the sidewalk. Someone stopped next to me for a moment and smiled.

“Thanks for saving the worms!” They said and then went on their way.

I found a few more throughout the time I spent at the plot. Earthworms bring me back to being a kid. I was a kid who was always playing with bugs and dirt. I’ve grown out of it in some ways. I’m not as fond as I used to be of dirt under my fingernails. I like to bring myself back to that place when I can.

One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to pretend that I was small. I read The Borrowers at some point in elementary school, and I was obsessed with the concept of tiny people living in the walls. It started before I read those books though. And actually, I preferred to do it outside rather than in the house.

When you think about it from the right angle, a puddle is a lake, a patch of clovers is a jungle, and a rock is a mountain. I would imagine little people or animals making their way through my backyard, inch by inch. Some of my earliest stories I guess.

It gets greener and greener everyday. In the rain the green seems even more vibrant. The moss on the logs is growing thicker, and all the branches in the trees are speckled with green buds.

More and more little plants are sprouting out of the leaf litter, and I’ve been taking lots of pictures so I can look them up later. I think I know some of them- but names slip through my head so easily. 

As I was looking at plants and worms, something caught my eye. I reached out to pick it up what I thought was some sort of acorn. Just an empty shell, bright red on the inside. I realized quickly it was attached to the ground. As I touched it I realized it was soft and spongy, probably a mushroom. I quickly pulled out my phone to google it and make sure I hadn’t just touched something I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t difficult to find, with a pretty distinct description. What came up said it was edible, so I relaxed. “Scarlet Elfcup”. A fun find towards the end of my visit.

Actually, the things I found have varying information about its edibility. It’s certainly safe to handle, but some sources say it is not edible, while some say it is. I even found a blog post guide on how to prepare it. So, it must be safe to eat, because people are clearly eating it. Though, people in the comments of the post are arguing about the ecological effects of harvesting it.

The little side path that I’ve been spending time by is an interesting spot. It’s obvious that it’s more used by people than the surrounding area. There's fewer bushes growing, more open space.

There are many logs arranged around the area. I think they’re used as benches by people. It might be a party spot, I’m not entirely sure. At some point I’ve been told that a LARPing club once used the area. Actually, I was told this by my disgruntled botany professor, who had planted a large number of plants in the area before the club started using it. Some native species they had been trying to reintroduce. They did not survive the live action roleplay activities.

There’s a large stone pillar that marks the little clearing. It is dark gray, with one side flattened. A plaque is marked into it. It reads:

“In memory of Rev. Ole. O Fugleskjel. Class of 1894. In the service of Christ became lost in the woods near Spooner Minn and perished from cold. Dec. 6, 1909. Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

When I first saw this memorial, I was with my botany class. Despite the fact that it names his class year, and that his name is literally Ole, they said he was actually not affiliated with the college. That the monument was here before the school was founded, and that the man had also died nowhere near the college.

Those dates, upon looking into it, don’t actually add up. The memorial names his death as in 1909, and the St. Olaf's website says the school was founded in 1874. I found a blurb about it on the St. Olaf website, which honestly doesn’t clarify his affiliation with the school. It says that the monument was a gift from Luther Seminary to St. Olaf. It stood for a while near Rolvaag Memorial Library, when there used to be a wooded area near it. Then it was moved to where it currently is when Holland Hall was built.

Actually, I’m unclear on where exactly he died. It is clear that he died while traveling somewhere to teach the gospel somewhere. The blurb on the website says he was traveling to his congregation in Spooner, Wisconsin. The plaque says Spooner, Minn, presumably meaning Minnesota. He has a page on ‘findagrave.com’ which also says Spooner, Wisconsin. He was traveling in a blizzard, some sources say in the northern woods. There is a Spooner Township in Minnesota. Though, maybe they meant Wisconsin on the plaque. I imagine the border might have been less obvious back then. Both places certainly fall within the North Woods.

I’m not sure where he really died. I do find at least one source that claims he is an alum. It seems like he must be, or else I’m not sure why St. Olaf would have been given a monument to him.

I did find a picture of the monument in its old location. It looks much more well kept, more purposeful. I even find a picture of its current location, where it looks much better kept. The little stone blocks that sit beside it are now spread out haphazardly, and it's surrounded by piles of fallen trees.

Perhaps it has just been too long since he died now. The monument is all most people know of him. What are we to do with long-forgotten memories?

The forest had exploded with green since the last time I was here. Everywhere I looked was splattered with green. The sprouts were growing out of the leaves, the buds dotting the branches of the trees. Moss grew up the sides of the trees in thick patches.

This was one thing I had been waiting for. It was time for plant identification! Some plants could have been identified before, but it’s much easier with leaves. Many of the smaller plants wouldn't have been growing at all a few weeks ago. I walked down the path taking pictures of every plant I saw. I tried to pay attention to each plant species that I hadn’t already noticed. I could identify a few on sight, but the pictures would help me identify the rest later.

I found that the vast majority of the green that had sprouted was maple trees. Specifically, the young maples that made up the understory of the forest. It was a net of green leaves just above my height throughout the woods. The tall trees were harder to identify, with their leaves far above and beyond what I could see clearly. What I could see was maples (sugar maples to be more specific). But I knew that some of them must be oak trees, because the oak leaves were all around the forest floor. I wondered whether the maples were the first of the trees to sprout leaves.

I did finally find a few other kinds of trees. A hackberry, which had no leaves but is easily identified by its rough bark. A dogwood tree, which has a particular way that its branches grow out. A basswood, which has smooth bark and heart shaped leaves.

There were also many plants on the forest floor, only a few of which I knew in the moment. I knew some of the ones I had learned in my botany class, and the rest I took pictures of to look up later.

As I was absorbed in my pictures of the plants, I was taken entirely by surprise by another occupant of the forest. A quick flash at the edge of my vision got my attention and then I let out a small gasp. A red fox, running through the forest just in front of me. Its red somehow stands out and blends in at the same time with the colors around it. It scampered across logs and under bushes until it came out on the path a ways ahead of me. I watched her as she disappeared into the woods on the other side.

I knew this particular fox was very busy. She had no time to spare. She was a mama, with a den full of kits across campus who needed to be fed. In my ornithology class about a week beforehand we had spent time looking at the fox den. We stood at a distance, across a large field with our binoculars. We watched the kits tussling with each other as their mama dropped off her latest catch for them. She was off again immediately to find more.

We saw her as we were birding nearby, maybe twenty minutes later. We watched as she wrestled a screeching squirrel. Some of the other students shut their eyes tight when they heard the squealing. After a moment she took off back towards the den with her catch clutched tightly in her jaws. There's no rest for a mother fox with a dozen kits.

It was just a classically gorgeous day today. Beautiful out, with a clear blue sky and warm weather with a slight breeze. As I walked along the trail, birdsong abounded. Mostly robins and finches, with some wrens and cardinals calling occasionally. Clouds drifted lazily across the sky. I watched them through the branches of the top story of the forest.

As I continued to take pictures of the sky and the plants, I caught sight of a familiar red shape. The mama fox was back on her mission, walking down the main path off to the side of my path.

For a moment I thought I lost track of her, but then I realized she had just stopped. She was paused, head bent low. She was watching a couple of foraging squirrels to my right. She moved further forward then paused again. The squirrels took no notice.

Apparently she decided this was not a good angle to come from. So, she turned back around to come down the path. This is apparently when she noticed me, or really processed my presence. She stopped and stared at me, the large ape, clearly standing where she wanted to be. She stared at me in a moment that felt familiar. That moment when your plans are foiled, and you have to adjust to the new reality. She turned and padded back up the path and into the trees on the other side, looking for a new target. The very lucky squirrels continued foraging, none the wiser.

I know this will be my last visit as part of my plot project. I’m sure I’ll be back next semester at some point. But not quite in the same way. I stood for a while and listened to the birdsong. It drifted on the air from every direction. There were many different songs all mixed together in a chorus.

I hope, leaving my plot on this final trip, that I’ll do something like this again. If not in such an official way, I hope I’ll spend time in the places I live near. Spend some time getting to know the land and what lives on it. It’s not a goal I’ll always live up to, but it’s a good one to keep trying at.