Natural Setting #1: Noland Trail

As I walked the Noland Trail, I saw many things that fell mainly under two topics. The first is the passing of time. I saw rotten trees right along the water which shows how long they've been there and how long the trees have had to withstand the crashing of the water. I also noticed the pine cones in the trees that have taken about two years to develop, which is again, the passing of time. The leaves have also changed from green to yellow, orange, and even brown as they die.
 
The second topic is human interaction with the wild. The creek right by the bridge was made by humans to be a bird sanctuary. The statue at the start of the trail shows a man taming a wild horse.
 
In addition to the two topics, I also noticed a few other things on the trail. As we walked on, the leaves on the ground made crunching noises; it made me realize that even though the leaves on the ground were dead, they still gave off some sign of life due to the crunching noise. There was also a tree at the start of the trail that was neither alive, nor dead, but sick. All my life it seems as if only humans and animals could be identified as 'sick', so it was interesting for the class to identify this single tree as being sick.

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