Tuesday, July 28, 2009
I rode my bike down to Meadowbrook a little later tonight. It was sunset when I arrived. I changed my anchor point from last night to a spot on the edge of the pond, which was only about 20 feet from where I was previously.
The temperature hit 95 today, and at sunset it was still sweltering hot. I really wanted to jump intot he pond to cool off, but that would be a sure fire way to scare off any wildlife that I was hoping to see.
I sat down on the edge of the pond and poured my self a cup of tea from my thermos. I unloaded my backpack and began paging through some of my field guides in hopes of being able to identify at least one plant or tree. I am pretty sure that I've successfully identified Poison Ivy (pictured). There are a couple other plants and trees that I have photographed but not identified yet.
There was a bit of noise coming from the other end of the pond. I took a walk down there to see what I could see. Fish were jumping out of the water all over the pond. Dragonflies buzzed around everywhere. And then, all of a sudden an animals heads pops up out of the water and starts swimming right toward me. It was a beaver bigger than my dog (I have a 50 lb Staffordshire Bull Terrier). I video taped the beaver swimming around in the pond. Check out the video I have posted.

I have allot of work ahead of me. Tonight, I came down to my secret spot with very little agenda, aside from trying to feel the place out and decide where my anchor point will be. The first place that seemed to feel right was on the side of the brook and underneath the footbridge. The bridge would provide me with a cover for when the weather was not so nice. I thought that being creek side would give me a chance to view more wildlife and the bridge would give me a little privacy without seeming creepy.
After spending twenty minutes there I explored more of the park and settled down in the sculpture area by the main pond. The is a covered bridge here, a view of the pond and overall a wider, more open space. Here I opened up my backpack and got out all my feild guides.
My attempts to identify the two different types of grasses ( or are they rushes?) right in front of me failed miserably.
There is a bit more human traffic over in this section, but overall it is really peaceful.
There is so many different types of trees , flowers, grasses and rushes that I can probably spend all week sitting here trying to identify them all. But right now if I look up I don't think I can define a single one of them with certainty. This is humbling and exciting. This is my new classroom.