6th Grade - Community Mapping Project
Vernal
Pool
Erik (drawing by Alex)
This is a vernal pool which has water in the spring time. On April
eighth it still had ice on it. Trees surround it in some places. There
is a small circular shaped pool at the end. It’s in a small hollow
where the water collects. It has no outlet, so the water just sits
there. We cannot see an inlet, so there is either a spring underneath
it, or it’s water collecting here. It probably dries up in the
summer because there is no inlet. Vernal pools are important for salmanders
because there are no fish to eat their eggs. If you visit this pool
in the spring you might see wood frogs, or spotted salamanders or
their eggs. On April fifteenth the ice had partly melted and we could
see that salamanders had been there. We could see their eggs. We found
either blue spotted or jefferson salamander eggs. |
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Salamander Eggs |
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Hemlock
on Stone Wall
Erik (drawing by Alex)
In
the middle of this stone wall is a hemlock. Now it’s a big
tree. It grew out the wall. There are lots of possiblities of how
it got there. It could of come from beneath the wall; a seed could
have got lodged in the wall, or an animal could have stored nuts
or cones there and the hemlock could have grown from that. It looks
like the tree is swallowing the stones. (*By using a formula related
to the size of the tree, and how fast it grows, we calculated that
the tree is around 160 years old. This means that the stone wall
is AT LEAST that old, probably older since enough soil would have
to have collected in and around the stones of the wall for the see
to grow.)
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Measuring
the hemlock |
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White
Pine on Top of Hill
Erik
We calculated the age of this big white pine tree. Since white pines
need to start growing in an open sunny area, we thought that the age
of this tree would tell us when the area was still open, but had been
abandoned as pasture, allowing trees to start to grow. This tree is
around 110 years old. So the last time this land was used as pasture
could have been about 1900. |
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Spring
Well
Patrick (drawing by Cory)
This
is a spring. It is fairly deep, 3 - to 4 ft deep. The spring is
on the inside of a circular rock enclosure, like a well. There is
a stream about 100 feet long coming out of the well. We took a stick
to see how deep it was and we figured out that the stick had some
kind of eggs stuck to it. We don’t know what laid its eggs
on the stick.
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Dump
(Beginning of Stone Wall)
Patrick (drawing by Cory)
The
dump is outlined by fallen over trees and rocks. There are some
metal materials in here but it doesn’t look messy enough for
a dump. There are bowls, cups and straps that hold barrels, stove
pipe and a lot of broken glass pieces. The stones are placed on
top of each other to form the front wall of the dump.
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Stone
Wall Corner
Patrick (drawing by Cory)
The
stone wall is 72 paces long(about 100 meters). The stone wall is
placed kind of neatly. I believe that this wall would have taken
about 2 days to build. The rocks have moss on them. The width of
the wall is about 2 ft. wide.
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Foundation
Patrick (drawing by Cory)
This
is a very small foundation near the west edge of the parcel boundary.
We don’t know what it was used for.
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Piney
Knoll
Patrick (drawing by Cory)
This
is a place we called Piney Knoll. There are aligned trees, meaning
that these trees were planted, and at the same time, because the
trees are almost the same thickness and height. While standing in
the middle of Piney Knoll it is very shady. We were thinking of
putting a picnic table here. I think that would be a very nice idea!
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Red
Pine Stand
Alex
Right
here on one side of the trail there are red pine trees planted in
rows. On the other side the trees grew wildly - white pine, and
maples. The white pine grew first when this was a sunny field. There
are other kinds of trees behind the maple. The red pines you can
tell are planted because they are spaced out in rows. The red pines
were planted sometime in the 1950’s. The trees were thinned
three times so they would grow thicker.
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Charles Brown House
Alex (drawing by Cory)
This
house foundation is made of stone also. It is built the exact same
way as the barn foundation. The rocks were laid out very carefully
so they won’t fall over. Now there are trees growing out of
the foundation and inside. There is a water pipe in one corner of
the house. Part of the wall has been collapsed half the length of
it. The floor is all dirt, fallen trees and vegetation. There are
a couple of small foundations near this one, that could have been
sheds, ice houses, or a well house.
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