Tracking Wind: Part Two and Other Observations

Today I continued my experiment that I started last week. I kept some leaves and needles that I couldn't identify around my spot to see how far they blew in from the hurricane.

I found some matching needles from the group of trees on Erdman Green between the health center and the dining hall, which is close enough to make sense but still pretty far in terms of wind gust strength.

One odd red leaf that looks like a cross between a maple leaf and a tiny palm frond (really) was still nowhere to be found, even though I was pretty determined to find where it came from because it seems like it would be an interesting tree. This means it probably traveled very far before it fell onto the steps behind Erdman Circle.

A lot of the leaves came from the pretty tree that once had shocking red/orange fall foliage under the streetlamp on the path from the arch to Erdman. Last week, they stood out in wonderful bright colors, but this week they are mostly a muddy shade of brown just like the rest of the leaves on the Overlook behind the Circle.

The branch I brought back is a holly branch. Those are very sturdy and it just seems unlikely that a storm could pull one off of a holly tree, but I guess it can.

The area that is my new spot is starting to amuse me. I'm not sure why yet, but the Overlook seems to be a catch-all for bits of other plants that have been blown in. It is the ultimate example of environmental change. So far, it has looked drastically different every time I have gone to see it. First, it was almost blindingly yellow on first examination, then it was a damp mix of a ton of colors with branches strewn about where they did not belong, and today it is only two unvarying colors of brown and green like somebody painted it and only had these two tubes of paint. This is a huge difference from my old spot in which not even the number of spiders changed all that much. I hope to be able to see the Overlook in the snow one week because there are a lot of evergreens surrounding it that have so far been missing out on the change in appearance trend. It will uniquely still look very green and alive under a blanket of snow, I think, because as of right now it's managing to look decent enough under its lovely mud/leaves mixture that is covering everything.