Day 1: January 20, 2013
Ø Bonded with fellow foresters in front of the Herbarium before embarking. Everyone is from such a variety of fields, backgrounds, and interests… They are all such vibrant and delightful people, I am so happy. The drive to the forest gave us our first taste of the New England “wilderness,” a billowing quilt of jutting stone cliffs, thick forests, and banks of melting snow. Sunset over everything. Arrived just as dark was falling, explored the beautiful Raup house where we are staying. Old farm house with a million rooms, gleaming wooden floors, and all of the touches of home. Explored. Then a wonderful dinner, conversation, and a tantalizing thought exercise in the museum…
Ø The museum is phenomenal. Nothing flashy or excessively modern, just a range of vintage dioramas of a beauty and quality to surpass even the Smithsonian’s exhibits (which, until now, had been my favorite museum fixture and work of scientific art.) Could spend hours gazing at them, exploring their depth and detail, but was glad to discuss them with my forest-mates and Dr. Foster – glad to have my attention called to the wealth of information about the land’s history and the cycle of ecological succession wrapped up in the art. Enlightening! And, it was an excellent intro to the work we will be doing tomorrow.
Ø More bonding with my classmates back at the house – card games, delicious snacks, and nickname-assignments! Teamwork on the dishes, then laughing, smiling, and giddiness with the anticipation of the week.
Ø Lying in bed, typing this entry, thinking about the snow boots at the foot of my bed and the sunlight streaming in through my window in the morning. Bliss. Goodnight!
Day 2: January 21, 2013
Ø Woke up bright and early for today’s foray into the forest. Hiked for hours and hours, learning to identify various plants and the stories they can tell ecologists about the context and history of their growth.
Ø Found ourselves traipsing through a variety of landscapes, starting with a secondary-growth stand of white pines around the remains of an old tanning mill. The mill stone, the foundations of the house and its root cellar, the stone dam were all still there. The tanners who lived their would have used the mill stone to grind hemlock bark to release the preserving tannins in which they would soak hides. From the mill, we moved to a frozen beaver pond, spent some time exploring the course of the little stream that fed it.
Ø Came upon a frozen swamp – leaves, sticks, and reeds frozen solid where they stood. We skidded across it in our boots. A tiny treasure somewhere in the center of the pond – wild cranberries, slightly fermented and then frozen. We ate as many as we could pluck and moved on to the shore. Surreal, colorful experience.
Ø Trekked over farm land, as well as a large golf course Harvard intends to buy and add to its research lands.
Ø Wandered into the closest thing the Forest has to “old growth,” a quiet, shady stand dominated by towering hemlock and white pine, oak, and four kinds of birch. Some ash and red maple scattered here and there, but mostly the hemlock seemed dominant. Things were quieter there. Every tree wider than a centimeter at breast height was marked with a number and a stripe of yellow paint. The Forest, remarked one student, is not so much a conservation, let’s- return-to-nature project but a vast, 3000-acre ecological laboratory. Ran into a group of researchers responsible for tagging and mapping the trees. Up to their knees in mud, wrapped in every conceivable layer of flannel and wool, they endeavored to mark every tree, consider every story… Role models.
Ø More hiking, hauled the coring staff out to Black Gum Bog, an ancient peat bog somewhere in the depths of the forest. The Black Gum trees never had much commercial presence. When branches broke, the bark never quite healed, so the wood is severely knotted and undesireable for building or splitting for firewood/fuel… And so, the 18th century farmers left the Black Gums be, and they grew up to create a distinctive landscape surrounded by other tall trees and black, sucking bog. Found a soft depression and endeavored to core there. We took many samples, plunging our corer (a remarkable, Swedish invention) down several feet, then 10 feet, 20 feet, and so on until I felt sure we would hid bedrock or something, but we didn’t! Hands and feet freezing and useless-feeling, but we did it anyway, taking turns until only the tallest/strongest among us could force the pole down into the Earth. Nearly lost the corer when the last rod, frozen over, failed to stay pegged to the rest of the apparatus. We plunged down some 12,000-13,000 years – from rich, black peat to shrub remains to the soft, silty remains of a grass land, to fine sands from the bottom of a lake, to deep, gritty clays in orange and gray. Saw some black charcoal, too, evidence of past fires. It was incredible, and the sucking sound the hold made as warm(er) black water and mud bubbled up from under the frozen forest floor – just beautiful. I could spend my life doing this, studying the ancient history of the land through its rocks and soils – the fossils of the bones of the Earth.
Ø Returned to the mess hall cold and grimy to thaw and eat a hearty, starchy meal. Then back to the house for a documentary on the legendary Aldo Leopold, father of the land ethic and conservation ecology. Well-done documentary, but the film itself was not so rewarding as the conversations it sparked afterwards – discussions of our personal connections to the land, our earliest memories of the power of nature to shape and affect lives. Stories ranging from backyard fruit trees to industrial park oases, to stargazing by the ocean, to snake-wrangling… Beautiful, and we became much closer as a group.
Ø Teamwork on the dishes, then we each peeled off to warm up our beds and settle in for the night. Snow fell.
Day 3: January 22, 2013
Ø Listened to a scientific talk by one of the resident researchers at the forest whose work focused on pests and invasive species. One of the most pressing problems for the forest right now is the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, a microscopic tree-mite originating in the Pacific Northwest but coming to Massachusetts by way of Japan à midatlantic forest à the great north. HWA makes its living by blowing through the wind or being shaken from the feathers of migrating birds. It clings to the underside of hemlock twigs and coats itself in a white casing resembling tiny wool or cotton balls. There, it undergoes the bulk of its life cycle, inserting a wire-thin feeding tube into the wood and feeding off of the starchy pericardium and then laying its eggs. There are two generations of HWA a year, and – unlike most other insects – it does not become dormant in the winter and will survive in cold weather down to -15/20 degrees. In the absence of its favorite hemlock, the spring adelgid are capable of sprouting wings, developing sex (typically, they are all females who clone themselves), and flying off to the tiger-tail spruce, which is not present in this environment. HWA poses a problem for the forest as some of the oldest-growth areas are dominated by the hemlock.
Ø Learned about treatment. Can spray trees with horticultural oil or soapy water, can inject chemicals into the trunk or spray them around the base… Fact is, not enough research has been done on the chemical triggers for the different stages of the creature’s life cycle, or on the mechanisms by which it actually kills the tree… Had a good time in the paleo lab looking at samples under the microscopes and batting around treatment ideas (as well as larger, economic problems with finding the best use of resources and dividing them among critical pests.)
Ø Afternoon was spent with another set of researchers who took us on an excellent walk through the old-growth parts of the forest, pointing out the various experiments (soil heating, climatological studies, mapping, tagging, carbon exchange measurements, leaf collection, etc.) that have methodically filled the woods. Climbed up the dizzying-tall observation tower in the old-growth hemlock part of the forest and broke through the canopy to gaze out over the whole of the forest. Cold wind tore at our faces, the tower swayed dangerously, and we all gave a great, big, thrilling wolf howl – which was awesomely returned by the ground-team.
Ø Returned to the mess hall for good, warm food and scintillating conversation about education and child development in America
Ø God, I love this place.
Day 4: January 23, 2013
Ø Today was creative writing day! Kicked things off with a talk by Dr. Foster on the importance of communicating science to a broader audience – an audience of policy-makers, students, administrators, and conscientious citizens who might not have the scientific background but who are in a position to actually make a difference… I have a newfound respect and admiration for the Harvard Forest, and its leadership in science advocacy and communication, and its value of artistic representations of the land…
Ø Moved on to analyzing sediment cores – which was AWESOME. I could literally spend my life reading the history of the landscape in its soils… Broke our samples apart with a little bit of water and washed them through a series of sieves. The top, peat-dominated layers contained black twigs and tiny roots, which we analyzed under the dissecting microscopes in the paleoecology lab. Deeper layers showed more “mulchy” material – roots, twigs, crumbled leaves, and hundreds of orange and black seeds, perfect and round. Below that, lake sediments – fine and coarse sands and pebbles of many colors – and organic matter started to disappear. At the lowest level – some 525 cm down – gray clays that broke apart to reveal colorful silicates
Ø Later, we met with Dr. Hart to discuss the creative New England pieces she had given us earlier in the week. Had a wonderful, enlightening discussion on each poem and excerpt. Inspired to write our own work (see yellow notebook for writing/sketching exercises.
Ø Had free time to write our own creative pieces about nature before dinner. Some sat in the icy sun room by Raup House to immerse themselves in the cold and snow while they wrote. Others went for walks or curled up by radiators indoors. I made myself a cup of tea and some toast, and settled down on my knees by the coffee table with my written notes and my laptop.
Ø What to write about? Dr. Hart had suggested the story of someone making a transition to an unfamiliar landscape, carrying a bag of items that might tell us something about their life and character… A young teacher moving from his college campus to a small town and a classroom full of impressionable minds. A child moving from the country to the city or back again… I settled on a mash-up of my own childhood memories (the stories my father wrote for me, flavors and textures of the Chesapeake Bay and Washington, D.C., lullabies, NASA) and memories of a future I wish for desperately (one-way trip to Mars.) The result was a short story – almost like the introduction to a longer novel – about an older me traveling to Mars, carrying memories of the landscape I grew up in to a new, alien landscape defined by wind and dust and crazy rocks. It was fun to write!
Ø Best night of the week (so far) à discussing everyone’s writing. My fellow foresters are so talented. Several times, the images and emotions they shared in their poetry and reflections made me tear up. Other times I smiled and laughed openly. Other times, I just sighed or became thoughtful… I have some spur-of-the-moment notes recorded in another file, but just – wow. I felt so many things sharing with everyone and hearing everyone’s feedback. I feel like we know each other so well now.
Ø Came back to the house – everyone was a little subdued, still thoughtful from the heavy memories and memoires we had all shared.
Ø Tomorrow is supposed to be so cold, we are not allowed outside for more than 30 minutes lest our exposed flesh succumb to frost bite and nerve damage. This is a beautiful, but unforgiving landscape.
Day 5: January 24, 2013
Ø Today was art day! Began the morning with nature illustration under the instruction of the brilliant, engaging, and charismatic Dr. Elizabeth Farnsworth. Exercises in drawing things quickly and in motion, capturing essence and form without getting bogged down in detail… Draw this in 10 seconds, draw that in 30 seconds, draw these in a minute… We drew our neighbors’ faces through a small window of glass, we sketched interesting objects Dr. Farnsworth had collected in her travels (tortoise shell, dried cactus, wooden instruments, glass frog, colorful shells, etc.), and we tried our hand at depicting potted plants from around the building. I learned so much, challenged so many of my perceptions, struggled to overcome bad habits and dependence on the eraser… I grew!
Ø New dream job: nature artist (get background in chemistry/microbiology/something cool and specific like mycology or entomology à then spend my days alternating between research, collaborative works of science and art, and travel à :D)
Ø The afternoon was spent on nature photography with the forest’s artist-in-residence, Roberto Mighty. Mr. Mighty has had an incredible life, traveling far and wide to capture people, history, natural landscape, scenes of decay, rebirth, new life, and change. He showed us some of his own stunning work, and then taught us the basics of balance, composition, and contrast… The law of thirds, the positioning of the most important subject in the frame…
Ø “The best camera is the camera you have with you… I’ve had work in galleries that I took with this little thing,” he said, holding up his slim iPhone. “Whatever you’ve got is just fine.” He turned us lose on the grounds to photograph whatever elements of the landscape might capture our interest and convey the essence of the landscape or scene to an audience.
Ø I wandered too far. For a time, I stayed around the parking lot in front of the main building, photographing lichens on stones, knotted trees, and interesting berries and dry seed pods around the gravel drive… When I wandered into the woods in pursuit of paper-white beech leaves and shocks of green moss, I looked back frequently to check for my companions. It was about -4 degrees Fahrenheit outside, not to mention wind chill, and we had been warned that exposed flesh could freeze or burn after 30 minutes… But soon I got distracted by some interesting light, an upturned tree, and I quickly lost my way and lost the group. A twinge of panic, mingled with excitement/adventure/awe of the beauty and labyrinthine-quality of the trees. I tried to wind my way back to a light patch I thought might be the campus.
Ø Ended up in the middle of a beaver pond, frozen over with several inches of ice and dusted with a fine layer of powdery snow. I didn’t realize I was on the water until I was right in the center of it all, staring down the beavers’ magnificent, snow-covered lodge. I wanted a picture of it, a picture of the dripping root system of a fallen tree, of the light on the ice, of my footprints on the frozen pond… My bare hand was almost too hard with cold to hold my camera phone or register with the touch screen. And the ice started to creak as I skidded nearer to the lodge. Defeated, I shoved my phone back in my pocket and breathed slow and warm on my hand. Headed back toward the light.
Ø I emerged onto a road. The fences, house, and field I saw were not Harvard Forest’s. Disoriented, I tried to follow a trail back through the woods, but discovered it was a trail for power lines and not for people. Wound my way back to the road, followed some signposts to – faster than I thought – return to the administrative buildings.
Ø How late was I? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? Oh, jeez, I hope they weren’t looking for me. That would be embarrassing.
Ø I found them all in the seminar room, though – concerned but not worried yet. Only late by a little bit, and I was okay.
Ø Phone was dead – the battery had been drained by the cold and excessive camera use. Went through the rest of the group’s photos, though, Mr. Mighty admiring our eye for detail, our attention to light and dark and composition, questioning our motives and our emotions at the moment of the shot. It’s true what they say – photography can expand your skills as an observer and appreciator of nature. A hundred wow-moments in that short space of time.
Ø After dinner, we had a workshop on a little bit of still photography and a lot of film à what is the difference between shooting a moving picture and shooting a still image, besides the obvious? The same keys of composition and balance apply, but now there are more details to pay attention to… Sound, focus on a subject, changing light and changing paces.
Ø Practiced filming interviews of our neighbors in different settings, watched a powerful film by Mr. Mighty about the pilgrims and the native Americans and the clash of their cultures and land ethics. Learned so much about the film making process, about the amount of thought and careful consideration and passion that goes into every detail.
Ø Whoa.
Ø Finished the evening with the exciting conclusion of the “noodle game,” wherein a floating foam pool noodle is hidden under someone’s bed during the week and is constantly shifted around. If the noodle is under your bed by 9 PM on Thursday, the rest of the foresters get to dress you up and have you do a fashion show. (Unless you are uncomfortable participating at all, in which case nobody judges and we forget the whole thing – it’s only fun when it’s fun for everyone!) Predictably, I’d forgotten about the noodle game till the last 5 minutes, and it was of course under my bed. With help from Jason and Trynn, we tricked Saad and Tristan into unbolting their door long enough for me to toss it under Tristan’s bed and escape to my room to bolt the door. Tristan and Saad lost! Of course, they were clever enough to hid themselves while the rest of the group went out to collect branches and dried plants for the show. We had another game of hide-and-go-seek trying to discover them (they were under their beds, of course.) Fashion show was ridiculous. Saad and Tristan played an owl in a nest of blankets and random house plants and a tree sheltering said owl. We took pictures, sang, and laughed, and made ourselves exhausted. Finished the night consolidating our pictures and writings and connecting with one another on Facebook. We’ve learned so much about each other, about the surrounding wilderness, about history, about ourselves… We will be friends for a long time, I think.
Ø Readings and then sweet, dreamy sleep.
Last Day:
Ø Met the brilliant and fascinating Dr. Richard Foreman from the school of design. Introduced for the first time to the concept of urban and road ecology… Dr. Foreman kicked things off with a lecture on the basic concepts and nomenclature of his field – discussing concepts like patches and corridors, challenges that come with designing human communities that border, blend with, perforate, and dissect natural spaces… Fascinating stuff – the details are in my yellow notebook, along with all of his excellent diagrams. Dr. Foreman is a phenomenal communicator – his visual diagrams of complex problems are easy to read and understand.
Ø Went on a field trip to the village of Petersham first. Tiny, New England town populated in the majority by the elderly and/or wealthy. Dr. Foreman made note of the townspeople’s resistance to change, dedication to historical and ecological conservation, and the troubles that arise from that… Saw the common meadow and more old, stone walls, indicative of the land’s place in the history of New England agriculture… Made note of reservoirs and man-made dams, the notable lack of commercial development, the necessity of duplexes and triplexes to make some of these expensive homes affordable.
Ø Food for thought: conservation of forests, wetlands, historic meadows, etc. is deeply important… BUT, land that is bought up by the Harvard Forest, the Audubon Society, and other conservation groups cannot be developed, cannot be taxed, and therefore increase the property taxes for everyone else in the community. Lack of municipal gov’t income from property taxes, combined with the expensive taxes driving families with young children out of the area, result in closing schools. Without schools, the community can’t have children, and the community ages and dies out. Difficult predicament – need to seek balance.
Ø Visited the actual city of Gardner, learned a lot about urban planning, the challenges associated with flooding and snow management, sloping roads, expansion, low-income housing, etc… Looked out the town’s lake reservoir, the introduction of wind power, the local schools.
Ø Most interesting stops were alongside roadways. Roads can serve as important corridors for wildlife to travel between suitable habitats, but if not properly equipped with vegetated median strips, wildlife over/underpasses, grassy edges, selectively permeable guardrails versus Jersey barriers… The corridor becomes instead a barrier or an insurmountable obstacle to the movement of animals and all of the critical gene-flow…
Ø Interesting perspective on non-native species… Ecologists who worry about the introduction of non-native species do have legitimate concerns about the loss of biodiversity, the inability of native animals and insects to make a home in forests of foreign trees, the unpredictable effects of declining forest cover and filled wetlands on the surrounding human spaces… BUT, for the most part, Dr. Foreman doesn’t think non-native species are such a huge deal for urban and suburban spaces. To get ANYTHING growing is a good thing in the big city or when trying to make it safer for animals to travel along the roadsides under cover of grass and shrub. And in larger forests, when non-native parasites take out the dominant species of tree, another species will move in to dominate and probably the surrounding wildlife will adapt just fine… Ecologists just have to pick their battles.
Ø Back at the main Forest buildings, we got our tee-shirts, ate our last supper, packed our bags into the van. Emotional experience – we all felt so close after a week of 24-hour-a-day interaction. We’ve bared a big part of our souls to one another in the form of our art, our poetry, our late-night conversations and goofy parlor games. It was scary to think that the connections we made might rot away as soon as we ran off to our respective dorms and academics and social lives… The Forest changed me – changed all of us – and I never want to forget that…
Tidbits from my Winter-Break Evaluation:
Did the forest change you?
As soon as I got back on campus and started reconnecting with my first-semester friends, all I could talk about was the Forest - the people I met, the incredible things I learned about history, growth, change, art, writing, and the interconnection of humanity with the land. I'm wearing flannel and wool hats all the time, waxing philosophical about tree parasites... One of my roommates summed it up pretty well: "Wow, you've become so... Earthy." But really! The way I think about conservation and the environment is so much more holistic - I've learned to consider human elements, the process of succession, the importance of biodiversity. I could truly see myself researching the biological history of the Earth forever. I want to travel out to the mountains or the deserts, travel to America's old-growth forests, travel to every lake and ocean. I want to draw and photograph it all, record my emotional responses to it in a water-proof journal. I want to see a grizzly bear. Without a doubt, I know there will be a lot more organismic and evolutionary biology, ecology, and geology courses in my near future... Basically, Harvard Forest may have changed my life.
One take-away from the week?
Wow, this is so hard to pin down. If I had to think of one concept or idea above all others that I will "take away" from the forest... I think it would have to be the idea that science doesn't always have to be this dry, objective thing. Scientists study the things we do because we love them and care deeply about them. The things we learn aren't just the numbers and graphs in our lab reports and technical papers - we can express them through art and poetry and advocacy/outreach to the community. Before I came to the forest, I had all but resigned myself to a life of laboratories and data reduction software. Now, I want to go out and live in my subject, feeling the mud between my toes and sketching dragon flies and waving marsh grasses. I want the people who read my work to feel the things I felt... And maybe by extension care about the numbers and graphs and the important things they can tell us.
Recommend the experience to others?
Landscapes (cityscapes, starscapes, etc.) define people. We don't always realize it, but they do. Everyone should spend some time getting to know the landscape they are living in - and meeting other people who are opening up their hearts and minds in the same way.
Post-Script:
I filled up my entire yellow, water-proof journal with notes and sketches and diagrams. I don’t have ready access to a scanner, so I guess I’ll just keep it to myself… But there’re a lot of memories in there.
Thank you, Harvard Forest.
Ø Bonded with fellow foresters in front of the Herbarium before embarking. Everyone is from such a variety of fields, backgrounds, and interests… They are all such vibrant and delightful people, I am so happy. The drive to the forest gave us our first taste of the New England “wilderness,” a billowing quilt of jutting stone cliffs, thick forests, and banks of melting snow. Sunset over everything. Arrived just as dark was falling, explored the beautiful Raup house where we are staying. Old farm house with a million rooms, gleaming wooden floors, and all of the touches of home. Explored. Then a wonderful dinner, conversation, and a tantalizing thought exercise in the museum…
Ø The museum is phenomenal. Nothing flashy or excessively modern, just a range of vintage dioramas of a beauty and quality to surpass even the Smithsonian’s exhibits (which, until now, had been my favorite museum fixture and work of scientific art.) Could spend hours gazing at them, exploring their depth and detail, but was glad to discuss them with my forest-mates and Dr. Foster – glad to have my attention called to the wealth of information about the land’s history and the cycle of ecological succession wrapped up in the art. Enlightening! And, it was an excellent intro to the work we will be doing tomorrow.
Ø More bonding with my classmates back at the house – card games, delicious snacks, and nickname-assignments! Teamwork on the dishes, then laughing, smiling, and giddiness with the anticipation of the week.
Ø Lying in bed, typing this entry, thinking about the snow boots at the foot of my bed and the sunlight streaming in through my window in the morning. Bliss. Goodnight!
Day 2: January 21, 2013
Ø Woke up bright and early for today’s foray into the forest. Hiked for hours and hours, learning to identify various plants and the stories they can tell ecologists about the context and history of their growth.
Ø Found ourselves traipsing through a variety of landscapes, starting with a secondary-growth stand of white pines around the remains of an old tanning mill. The mill stone, the foundations of the house and its root cellar, the stone dam were all still there. The tanners who lived their would have used the mill stone to grind hemlock bark to release the preserving tannins in which they would soak hides. From the mill, we moved to a frozen beaver pond, spent some time exploring the course of the little stream that fed it.
Ø Came upon a frozen swamp – leaves, sticks, and reeds frozen solid where they stood. We skidded across it in our boots. A tiny treasure somewhere in the center of the pond – wild cranberries, slightly fermented and then frozen. We ate as many as we could pluck and moved on to the shore. Surreal, colorful experience.
Ø Trekked over farm land, as well as a large golf course Harvard intends to buy and add to its research lands.
Ø Wandered into the closest thing the Forest has to “old growth,” a quiet, shady stand dominated by towering hemlock and white pine, oak, and four kinds of birch. Some ash and red maple scattered here and there, but mostly the hemlock seemed dominant. Things were quieter there. Every tree wider than a centimeter at breast height was marked with a number and a stripe of yellow paint. The Forest, remarked one student, is not so much a conservation, let’s- return-to-nature project but a vast, 3000-acre ecological laboratory. Ran into a group of researchers responsible for tagging and mapping the trees. Up to their knees in mud, wrapped in every conceivable layer of flannel and wool, they endeavored to mark every tree, consider every story… Role models.
Ø More hiking, hauled the coring staff out to Black Gum Bog, an ancient peat bog somewhere in the depths of the forest. The Black Gum trees never had much commercial presence. When branches broke, the bark never quite healed, so the wood is severely knotted and undesireable for building or splitting for firewood/fuel… And so, the 18th century farmers left the Black Gums be, and they grew up to create a distinctive landscape surrounded by other tall trees and black, sucking bog. Found a soft depression and endeavored to core there. We took many samples, plunging our corer (a remarkable, Swedish invention) down several feet, then 10 feet, 20 feet, and so on until I felt sure we would hid bedrock or something, but we didn’t! Hands and feet freezing and useless-feeling, but we did it anyway, taking turns until only the tallest/strongest among us could force the pole down into the Earth. Nearly lost the corer when the last rod, frozen over, failed to stay pegged to the rest of the apparatus. We plunged down some 12,000-13,000 years – from rich, black peat to shrub remains to the soft, silty remains of a grass land, to fine sands from the bottom of a lake, to deep, gritty clays in orange and gray. Saw some black charcoal, too, evidence of past fires. It was incredible, and the sucking sound the hold made as warm(er) black water and mud bubbled up from under the frozen forest floor – just beautiful. I could spend my life doing this, studying the ancient history of the land through its rocks and soils – the fossils of the bones of the Earth.
Ø Returned to the mess hall cold and grimy to thaw and eat a hearty, starchy meal. Then back to the house for a documentary on the legendary Aldo Leopold, father of the land ethic and conservation ecology. Well-done documentary, but the film itself was not so rewarding as the conversations it sparked afterwards – discussions of our personal connections to the land, our earliest memories of the power of nature to shape and affect lives. Stories ranging from backyard fruit trees to industrial park oases, to stargazing by the ocean, to snake-wrangling… Beautiful, and we became much closer as a group.
Ø Teamwork on the dishes, then we each peeled off to warm up our beds and settle in for the night. Snow fell.
Day 3: January 22, 2013
Ø Listened to a scientific talk by one of the resident researchers at the forest whose work focused on pests and invasive species. One of the most pressing problems for the forest right now is the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, a microscopic tree-mite originating in the Pacific Northwest but coming to Massachusetts by way of Japan à midatlantic forest à the great north. HWA makes its living by blowing through the wind or being shaken from the feathers of migrating birds. It clings to the underside of hemlock twigs and coats itself in a white casing resembling tiny wool or cotton balls. There, it undergoes the bulk of its life cycle, inserting a wire-thin feeding tube into the wood and feeding off of the starchy pericardium and then laying its eggs. There are two generations of HWA a year, and – unlike most other insects – it does not become dormant in the winter and will survive in cold weather down to -15/20 degrees. In the absence of its favorite hemlock, the spring adelgid are capable of sprouting wings, developing sex (typically, they are all females who clone themselves), and flying off to the tiger-tail spruce, which is not present in this environment. HWA poses a problem for the forest as some of the oldest-growth areas are dominated by the hemlock.
Ø Learned about treatment. Can spray trees with horticultural oil or soapy water, can inject chemicals into the trunk or spray them around the base… Fact is, not enough research has been done on the chemical triggers for the different stages of the creature’s life cycle, or on the mechanisms by which it actually kills the tree… Had a good time in the paleo lab looking at samples under the microscopes and batting around treatment ideas (as well as larger, economic problems with finding the best use of resources and dividing them among critical pests.)
Ø Afternoon was spent with another set of researchers who took us on an excellent walk through the old-growth parts of the forest, pointing out the various experiments (soil heating, climatological studies, mapping, tagging, carbon exchange measurements, leaf collection, etc.) that have methodically filled the woods. Climbed up the dizzying-tall observation tower in the old-growth hemlock part of the forest and broke through the canopy to gaze out over the whole of the forest. Cold wind tore at our faces, the tower swayed dangerously, and we all gave a great, big, thrilling wolf howl – which was awesomely returned by the ground-team.
Ø Returned to the mess hall for good, warm food and scintillating conversation about education and child development in America
Ø God, I love this place.
Day 4: January 23, 2013
Ø Today was creative writing day! Kicked things off with a talk by Dr. Foster on the importance of communicating science to a broader audience – an audience of policy-makers, students, administrators, and conscientious citizens who might not have the scientific background but who are in a position to actually make a difference… I have a newfound respect and admiration for the Harvard Forest, and its leadership in science advocacy and communication, and its value of artistic representations of the land…
Ø Moved on to analyzing sediment cores – which was AWESOME. I could literally spend my life reading the history of the landscape in its soils… Broke our samples apart with a little bit of water and washed them through a series of sieves. The top, peat-dominated layers contained black twigs and tiny roots, which we analyzed under the dissecting microscopes in the paleoecology lab. Deeper layers showed more “mulchy” material – roots, twigs, crumbled leaves, and hundreds of orange and black seeds, perfect and round. Below that, lake sediments – fine and coarse sands and pebbles of many colors – and organic matter started to disappear. At the lowest level – some 525 cm down – gray clays that broke apart to reveal colorful silicates
Ø Later, we met with Dr. Hart to discuss the creative New England pieces she had given us earlier in the week. Had a wonderful, enlightening discussion on each poem and excerpt. Inspired to write our own work (see yellow notebook for writing/sketching exercises.
Ø Had free time to write our own creative pieces about nature before dinner. Some sat in the icy sun room by Raup House to immerse themselves in the cold and snow while they wrote. Others went for walks or curled up by radiators indoors. I made myself a cup of tea and some toast, and settled down on my knees by the coffee table with my written notes and my laptop.
Ø What to write about? Dr. Hart had suggested the story of someone making a transition to an unfamiliar landscape, carrying a bag of items that might tell us something about their life and character… A young teacher moving from his college campus to a small town and a classroom full of impressionable minds. A child moving from the country to the city or back again… I settled on a mash-up of my own childhood memories (the stories my father wrote for me, flavors and textures of the Chesapeake Bay and Washington, D.C., lullabies, NASA) and memories of a future I wish for desperately (one-way trip to Mars.) The result was a short story – almost like the introduction to a longer novel – about an older me traveling to Mars, carrying memories of the landscape I grew up in to a new, alien landscape defined by wind and dust and crazy rocks. It was fun to write!
Ø Best night of the week (so far) à discussing everyone’s writing. My fellow foresters are so talented. Several times, the images and emotions they shared in their poetry and reflections made me tear up. Other times I smiled and laughed openly. Other times, I just sighed or became thoughtful… I have some spur-of-the-moment notes recorded in another file, but just – wow. I felt so many things sharing with everyone and hearing everyone’s feedback. I feel like we know each other so well now.
Ø Came back to the house – everyone was a little subdued, still thoughtful from the heavy memories and memoires we had all shared.
Ø Tomorrow is supposed to be so cold, we are not allowed outside for more than 30 minutes lest our exposed flesh succumb to frost bite and nerve damage. This is a beautiful, but unforgiving landscape.
Day 5: January 24, 2013
Ø Today was art day! Began the morning with nature illustration under the instruction of the brilliant, engaging, and charismatic Dr. Elizabeth Farnsworth. Exercises in drawing things quickly and in motion, capturing essence and form without getting bogged down in detail… Draw this in 10 seconds, draw that in 30 seconds, draw these in a minute… We drew our neighbors’ faces through a small window of glass, we sketched interesting objects Dr. Farnsworth had collected in her travels (tortoise shell, dried cactus, wooden instruments, glass frog, colorful shells, etc.), and we tried our hand at depicting potted plants from around the building. I learned so much, challenged so many of my perceptions, struggled to overcome bad habits and dependence on the eraser… I grew!
Ø New dream job: nature artist (get background in chemistry/microbiology/something cool and specific like mycology or entomology à then spend my days alternating between research, collaborative works of science and art, and travel à :D)
Ø The afternoon was spent on nature photography with the forest’s artist-in-residence, Roberto Mighty. Mr. Mighty has had an incredible life, traveling far and wide to capture people, history, natural landscape, scenes of decay, rebirth, new life, and change. He showed us some of his own stunning work, and then taught us the basics of balance, composition, and contrast… The law of thirds, the positioning of the most important subject in the frame…
Ø “The best camera is the camera you have with you… I’ve had work in galleries that I took with this little thing,” he said, holding up his slim iPhone. “Whatever you’ve got is just fine.” He turned us lose on the grounds to photograph whatever elements of the landscape might capture our interest and convey the essence of the landscape or scene to an audience.
Ø I wandered too far. For a time, I stayed around the parking lot in front of the main building, photographing lichens on stones, knotted trees, and interesting berries and dry seed pods around the gravel drive… When I wandered into the woods in pursuit of paper-white beech leaves and shocks of green moss, I looked back frequently to check for my companions. It was about -4 degrees Fahrenheit outside, not to mention wind chill, and we had been warned that exposed flesh could freeze or burn after 30 minutes… But soon I got distracted by some interesting light, an upturned tree, and I quickly lost my way and lost the group. A twinge of panic, mingled with excitement/adventure/awe of the beauty and labyrinthine-quality of the trees. I tried to wind my way back to a light patch I thought might be the campus.
Ø Ended up in the middle of a beaver pond, frozen over with several inches of ice and dusted with a fine layer of powdery snow. I didn’t realize I was on the water until I was right in the center of it all, staring down the beavers’ magnificent, snow-covered lodge. I wanted a picture of it, a picture of the dripping root system of a fallen tree, of the light on the ice, of my footprints on the frozen pond… My bare hand was almost too hard with cold to hold my camera phone or register with the touch screen. And the ice started to creak as I skidded nearer to the lodge. Defeated, I shoved my phone back in my pocket and breathed slow and warm on my hand. Headed back toward the light.
Ø I emerged onto a road. The fences, house, and field I saw were not Harvard Forest’s. Disoriented, I tried to follow a trail back through the woods, but discovered it was a trail for power lines and not for people. Wound my way back to the road, followed some signposts to – faster than I thought – return to the administrative buildings.
Ø How late was I? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? Oh, jeez, I hope they weren’t looking for me. That would be embarrassing.
Ø I found them all in the seminar room, though – concerned but not worried yet. Only late by a little bit, and I was okay.
Ø Phone was dead – the battery had been drained by the cold and excessive camera use. Went through the rest of the group’s photos, though, Mr. Mighty admiring our eye for detail, our attention to light and dark and composition, questioning our motives and our emotions at the moment of the shot. It’s true what they say – photography can expand your skills as an observer and appreciator of nature. A hundred wow-moments in that short space of time.
Ø After dinner, we had a workshop on a little bit of still photography and a lot of film à what is the difference between shooting a moving picture and shooting a still image, besides the obvious? The same keys of composition and balance apply, but now there are more details to pay attention to… Sound, focus on a subject, changing light and changing paces.
Ø Practiced filming interviews of our neighbors in different settings, watched a powerful film by Mr. Mighty about the pilgrims and the native Americans and the clash of their cultures and land ethics. Learned so much about the film making process, about the amount of thought and careful consideration and passion that goes into every detail.
Ø Whoa.
Ø Finished the evening with the exciting conclusion of the “noodle game,” wherein a floating foam pool noodle is hidden under someone’s bed during the week and is constantly shifted around. If the noodle is under your bed by 9 PM on Thursday, the rest of the foresters get to dress you up and have you do a fashion show. (Unless you are uncomfortable participating at all, in which case nobody judges and we forget the whole thing – it’s only fun when it’s fun for everyone!) Predictably, I’d forgotten about the noodle game till the last 5 minutes, and it was of course under my bed. With help from Jason and Trynn, we tricked Saad and Tristan into unbolting their door long enough for me to toss it under Tristan’s bed and escape to my room to bolt the door. Tristan and Saad lost! Of course, they were clever enough to hid themselves while the rest of the group went out to collect branches and dried plants for the show. We had another game of hide-and-go-seek trying to discover them (they were under their beds, of course.) Fashion show was ridiculous. Saad and Tristan played an owl in a nest of blankets and random house plants and a tree sheltering said owl. We took pictures, sang, and laughed, and made ourselves exhausted. Finished the night consolidating our pictures and writings and connecting with one another on Facebook. We’ve learned so much about each other, about the surrounding wilderness, about history, about ourselves… We will be friends for a long time, I think.
Ø Readings and then sweet, dreamy sleep.
Last Day:
Ø Met the brilliant and fascinating Dr. Richard Foreman from the school of design. Introduced for the first time to the concept of urban and road ecology… Dr. Foreman kicked things off with a lecture on the basic concepts and nomenclature of his field – discussing concepts like patches and corridors, challenges that come with designing human communities that border, blend with, perforate, and dissect natural spaces… Fascinating stuff – the details are in my yellow notebook, along with all of his excellent diagrams. Dr. Foreman is a phenomenal communicator – his visual diagrams of complex problems are easy to read and understand.
Ø Went on a field trip to the village of Petersham first. Tiny, New England town populated in the majority by the elderly and/or wealthy. Dr. Foreman made note of the townspeople’s resistance to change, dedication to historical and ecological conservation, and the troubles that arise from that… Saw the common meadow and more old, stone walls, indicative of the land’s place in the history of New England agriculture… Made note of reservoirs and man-made dams, the notable lack of commercial development, the necessity of duplexes and triplexes to make some of these expensive homes affordable.
Ø Food for thought: conservation of forests, wetlands, historic meadows, etc. is deeply important… BUT, land that is bought up by the Harvard Forest, the Audubon Society, and other conservation groups cannot be developed, cannot be taxed, and therefore increase the property taxes for everyone else in the community. Lack of municipal gov’t income from property taxes, combined with the expensive taxes driving families with young children out of the area, result in closing schools. Without schools, the community can’t have children, and the community ages and dies out. Difficult predicament – need to seek balance.
Ø Visited the actual city of Gardner, learned a lot about urban planning, the challenges associated with flooding and snow management, sloping roads, expansion, low-income housing, etc… Looked out the town’s lake reservoir, the introduction of wind power, the local schools.
Ø Most interesting stops were alongside roadways. Roads can serve as important corridors for wildlife to travel between suitable habitats, but if not properly equipped with vegetated median strips, wildlife over/underpasses, grassy edges, selectively permeable guardrails versus Jersey barriers… The corridor becomes instead a barrier or an insurmountable obstacle to the movement of animals and all of the critical gene-flow…
Ø Interesting perspective on non-native species… Ecologists who worry about the introduction of non-native species do have legitimate concerns about the loss of biodiversity, the inability of native animals and insects to make a home in forests of foreign trees, the unpredictable effects of declining forest cover and filled wetlands on the surrounding human spaces… BUT, for the most part, Dr. Foreman doesn’t think non-native species are such a huge deal for urban and suburban spaces. To get ANYTHING growing is a good thing in the big city or when trying to make it safer for animals to travel along the roadsides under cover of grass and shrub. And in larger forests, when non-native parasites take out the dominant species of tree, another species will move in to dominate and probably the surrounding wildlife will adapt just fine… Ecologists just have to pick their battles.
Ø Back at the main Forest buildings, we got our tee-shirts, ate our last supper, packed our bags into the van. Emotional experience – we all felt so close after a week of 24-hour-a-day interaction. We’ve bared a big part of our souls to one another in the form of our art, our poetry, our late-night conversations and goofy parlor games. It was scary to think that the connections we made might rot away as soon as we ran off to our respective dorms and academics and social lives… The Forest changed me – changed all of us – and I never want to forget that…
Tidbits from my Winter-Break Evaluation:
Did the forest change you?
As soon as I got back on campus and started reconnecting with my first-semester friends, all I could talk about was the Forest - the people I met, the incredible things I learned about history, growth, change, art, writing, and the interconnection of humanity with the land. I'm wearing flannel and wool hats all the time, waxing philosophical about tree parasites... One of my roommates summed it up pretty well: "Wow, you've become so... Earthy." But really! The way I think about conservation and the environment is so much more holistic - I've learned to consider human elements, the process of succession, the importance of biodiversity. I could truly see myself researching the biological history of the Earth forever. I want to travel out to the mountains or the deserts, travel to America's old-growth forests, travel to every lake and ocean. I want to draw and photograph it all, record my emotional responses to it in a water-proof journal. I want to see a grizzly bear. Without a doubt, I know there will be a lot more organismic and evolutionary biology, ecology, and geology courses in my near future... Basically, Harvard Forest may have changed my life.
One take-away from the week?
Wow, this is so hard to pin down. If I had to think of one concept or idea above all others that I will "take away" from the forest... I think it would have to be the idea that science doesn't always have to be this dry, objective thing. Scientists study the things we do because we love them and care deeply about them. The things we learn aren't just the numbers and graphs in our lab reports and technical papers - we can express them through art and poetry and advocacy/outreach to the community. Before I came to the forest, I had all but resigned myself to a life of laboratories and data reduction software. Now, I want to go out and live in my subject, feeling the mud between my toes and sketching dragon flies and waving marsh grasses. I want the people who read my work to feel the things I felt... And maybe by extension care about the numbers and graphs and the important things they can tell us.
Recommend the experience to others?
Landscapes (cityscapes, starscapes, etc.) define people. We don't always realize it, but they do. Everyone should spend some time getting to know the landscape they are living in - and meeting other people who are opening up their hearts and minds in the same way.
Post-Script:
I filled up my entire yellow, water-proof journal with notes and sketches and diagrams. I don’t have ready access to a scanner, so I guess I’ll just keep it to myself… But there’re a lot of memories in there.
Thank you, Harvard Forest.