The Big Day!

Day 5

Today we chose our projects! I am very excited to be part of Group Vernal! We will be studying one particular vernal pool that is right off the Tibbets trail and taking what we find and looking for other vernal pools in the area.

We began this morning with three really great facilitations! We started out using our creative side to describe a special place that is dear to our heart and makes us feel like we have a sense of place. I really enjoyed listening and seeing other people's places. For me it was hard to describe but I did my best. In the end it actually made me kind of homesick. Below is the poem I wrote about my place:

Paradise Cove
There is a spot we cherish,
Tucked away by Point Dume.
Where if by land or by sea,
I feel like I'm home.

The smell of salt is in the air,
And the kelp beds are quite abundant.
Just below the surface you enter another world,
A world not belonging to us,
but a world where tranquility resides.

A place I call home where I may not rest my head,
A place that reminds me of my life as a child,
A place so beautiful it will take your breath away.

The great aspect of this class is that you are allowed to be you. Your thoughts and ideas are never wrong or dumb, and I love that. We are connecting physically and emotionally with our surroundings and what I am learning in this class I want to take with me in my next journey.

Quote of the day:

If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are.

-Wendell Berry

A Wet Day

Day 4

The morning found us learning and exploring the wetlands on Tamposiland. Our guest speaker, David, teaches the wetlands ecology and management course at UNH. In just the few hours we spent on wetlands ecology I had a million ides running through my head about our project. I have to say I have a connection to water, fresh or salt, and I just always want to know what is under the surface. Beaver creek (picture to the left) has a beautiful edge with many aquatic and terrestrial plants. Oh and there is a beaver lodge but nobody home. These beavers worked really hard and are considered a keystone species because there damning allows for a wetlands teeming with life. This wetland continues to be an important ecosystem in Tamposi although the beavers may have moved on to setup camp somewhere else.

The afternoon was spent with a facilitation and brainstorming our project ideas. There are so many great proposals that is difficult to figure out what I would like to work with. Ultimately, I would like to do a project that benefits the public. I would like the public to appreciate and care for what could literally be in their backyard. My strong interests, once again, would be to do something related to aquatic species or with the history of the Tamposiland.

See you next week!