Observations of Nature Model

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Observations of Nature Model
I am at a rock ledge behind my house on Winter Street in Peterborough, NH. It is about 8 in the morning. It is sunny and cool on this May morning. Some May flies are buzzing around my face, but they don’t seem to know what to do. I am sitting on a rock outcropping of ledge. It seems like it was bulldozed here many years before, for there are four or five large ledge chunks strewn together at odd angles. My sons have made a fort around them and they have tried to dig out a cave from under one large chuck. Kids like forts. I am looking westerly into the forest. The forest runs for about 200 feet and then there is the back of a house. Beyond it is the bowling alley. The land drops down slightly as it reaches away. Straight ahead of me and to my left are very large pine trees with small and scrawny maple and beech trees growing between them. To my right the pines subside to large oak and maple and the trees seem smaller and shorter as the land rolls northward to Elm Street, about 450 feet away.

Some bluejays are working the pine trees. They fly up to the branches and look around, and then they fly higher into the pine, looking for bugs I assume. They never seem to eat though; mostly they seem to look at things. I hear the cars traveling on Elm Street faintly. I didn’t hear them when I first sat down, but I do now. The sun is getting higher and it is getting warmer. I hear my kids back on the back lawn playing soccer or something. A grey squirrel runs down a big pine tree and stops suddenly and looks suspiciously at me. He is about 30 feet away and he looks like he is looking to his right, but he is really looking at me. His tail switches spastically, but his body and eyes don’t move. Finally he moves a little down the tree and then stops again. He suddenly flies back up the tree and screeches a little from the high limbs.

The May flies are getting smarter and a few are flying around my eyes and ears. I swoosh them away, but they come right back. I take some Skin so Soft from my bag and put it on my ears and face and hands. They don’t bother me much now. I have a can of hair spray it they really get bad.

I see a chipmunk scurry down the length of an old log about 50 feet to my right. It is down the hill some and I get just make it out. The old tree lies sideways on the hill and is all but decomposed, yet I can make out that it was a large pine tree once. The chipmunk seems to disappear inside the trunk of the tree, but then reappears a while later farther down the trunk.

The old tree runs towards its stump, which is still erect and distinguishable. It was once a large tree and around it, some even growing from its trunk, are small pine trees. They are like a grove, for the space is open in a large circle around where the tree once stood. The stump seems in better shape then the log’s trunk. It still has some bark and its roots still hold the earth. But it is surely dead.

The chipmunk appears on top of the stump and sits on its hind legs as it looks around. It is more brave than the squirrel, and it begins working its way up the hill to my right. It zigs and zags as if trying to elude a posse. It stops quickly and stands up on its hind legs to look around, but not for long. I lose it in the dense, dead tree leaves, but I can hear it work the leaves for food. Occasionally I see its tail and head poke up through the leaves.

I see a nuthatch work its way down a large pine tree. The tree is huge and nothing grows around it for quite a ways. Some really small and sickly maple and beech try to though. The tree blocks out most of the sun as the sun moves behind it. It is colder now, and I move a little to my get to get more sun,. In another 2 weeks, the trees foliage will be out, and this will be a dark spot. The nuthatch works tirelessly around the tree, upside down the entire time. He pokes into the bark, like a bird on an elephant picking lice and parasites off his skin.