Visions of the Landscape Journal:: A Spring Like Day in the Jericho Research Forest:

Our first trip on the open road...

Old Farm Equipment

...and somebody already got lost. Sorry for the delay on the post here. But I figured I would give you all a little delated Valentines Day present. February 6th, 2012 we set out on our first road trip. Our destination was Jericho Research Forest. The JRF is a 478 acre research facility used by the forestry department in the Rubenstein School of Natural Resources here at UVM. The JRF was acquired by UVM in 1941 as part of a trade agreement between the Burlington International Airport (if it was even international at that time) and UVM. Essentially BTV needed more land to expand their airport and the only real feasible area was a property owned by UVM. Long story short UVM gave up the land in exchange for the 478 acre site. JRF was originally used for farming, which seems to be a reoccurring theme throughout these trips. Most of the farms were abandoned much earlier than when they were acquired by UVM, but the last remaining few were used right up until the final moments prior to purchase.

Human Cut Tree

It wasn't deep into the woods before we all had out cameras out snapping some excellent shots of what JRF had to offer. The landscape was similar to Centennial Woods, in that it was forested landscape, but other than that it was completely different. Because the JRF is home to the forestry department at UVM most of the forest has been "tampered with." What I mean by this is that much of the forest has been used for research studies conducted by the school. I don't know much beyond that, but the forest is certainly home to some unique forest arrangements. The photo to the right shows one tree, among of the many, that has been cut down, cored, or tampered with in one way or another. I don't mean to sound like what the UVM forestry department is doing something wrong in anyway, since it is a research forest after all, but I am just trying to describe the environment and landscape that is JRF.

Deer Tracks in Snow

One of the more interesting things that kept popping up in the forest was the animal tracks. Knowing this forest was usually, at some point or another, populated by at least a couple of people, I found it hard to believe the amount of animal tracks in the snow. By the best of my knowledge, and I am no expert, most of the tracks appeared to be Bunny, Wild Turkey and Deer tracks, as well as a dog here and there (hopefully on a leash). Luckily most of the dog tracks were on the path. And speaking of paths, paths were used as the main divider of property between lands.

Aside from that it was really hard to differentiate the forest fragments, since some were used for different forms of research than others, used our Professor, Dan Wells, sure knew his stuff when it came to the forest. Apparently many of these old farms, prior to UVM buying the land, used large trees or barbwire fences to divide their land. Most of the barbwire has been since broken or taken down, but a couple of places deeper in the woods you can still see the remnants of what it used to be like.

I found the trees boundaries even harder to find that the barbwire. Try decipher a "bigger" tree amongst trees 100 plus feet tall. Our depth perception doesn't really help when looking up at a tree line. A 120 foot tree looks just as big as an 80 foot tree, its pretty weird. Give it a try on the photo below. I am sure you know the tree in the center is the biggest, but how tall do you think it actually is? And what about the trees next to it? How tall are they?

Don't they all look the same size?

Well to be honest I am not quite sure how tall the surrounding trees are, but they certainly aren't 160 feet tall like the tree in the center. They are probably only 70 - 120 feet if I were to guess. The only real way to decipher the trees is to look at there waist down by the trunks. The wider the tree, more so than not, the taller it is going to be. This is thought to be one of the biggest trees in the research forest. It was the climax of the trip being able to stand next to this monster and really reflect on the wonders of nature. It's pretty crazy to think that trees can grow 16 stories in the air and still stand. Sure makes you feel a bit small...

Alright well I kinda don't have much else to say about our adventure in the JRF, but I do have a lot more photos. I will let the photos do the talking. Enjoy the photo journey and remember that any of the photos you see are available for purchase for just the cost of printing and shipping!!!

Thanks,

SC