Listening to the Landscape

15 Aug, 2011 Author: glorianna

Alex jumps in and pushes the floating dreck downstream. Phew!

Alex jumps in and pushes the floating dreck downstream. Phew!

Listening to change across a landscape is different from remembering how it was when I fished there sometime in the past, or imagining how it might present itself in the future. Listening to change requires us to measure the landscape, using a range of sensing technologies, with constancy and at an appropriate granularity over time and across space.

Having successfully raised funds for the engineering design phase, we can now begin to explore the landscape with more than binoculars, cameras and the occasional tape recorder. On August 12, Alex Hackman, a restoration specialist from the Massachusetts Division of Ecological Restoration who will serve as coordinator of the technical team, visited Tidmarsh to install pressure transducers on site.  These instruments will provide a dynamic history of water depth, flow and temperature over time.  In the short term, these records will serve to inform our restoration design; over the longer installation time-frame, these observations-over-time will contribute to a long-term (20 year) history of a landscape in transition, and, at the same time, will inform a web-accessible, dynamic, virtual model of the environment, a model that will be used to invite the broader public to explore, interpret and engage in conversation about specific aspects of wetland dynamics.

We have marked each installation with a DO NOT DISTURB sign.  Any disturbance to these installations will result in inaccurate data! Therefore as you enjoy walking the property, please steer clear and allow these devices to do their work.  Thank you.

The Arm: how much flow in August?

The Arm: how much flow in August?

Congratulations Corliss and David!

14 Aug, 2011 Author: glorianna

Photo: Garden in preparation.

Photo: Garden in preparation.

All landscapes are in transition all the time; some more than others. In the absence of a traumatic natural calamity or intervention, this process of constant change is difficult to monitor or understand.

As humans we often measure change using an event structure: moving in or out of a house, marriage, the arrival of children, passage of one’s parents or close friends or the seasons, which are artistically articulated by gardeners around the world.

Yesterday Corliss and David were married. Their romance has been a story of love and caring on a special patch of Tidmarsh property. A few years ago, David found a nice flat rock that now serves as a centerpiece in their yard. Last week the picnic table was perched on top of the rock to allow for easy mowing before family arrived for the event. This week preparations intensified; a rug for the house; a balloon arch for the ceremony; a blow-up castle/trampoline for the children.  As family and friends arrived, both rock and table, in their separate locations, provided comfort and easy conviviality for this joyful occasion. Congratulations, Corliss and David!

The tire episode

16 Jul, 2011 Author: Glorianna Davenport

One of the challenges of owning land is dealing with the crap people dump on it. There is always something to pick up: empty potato chip bags, bottles and cans to larger items such as mattresses, dishwashers and dryers (broken of course) and children's toys.  What is this person thinking who left that thing behind? What sensitivity index (aesthetic or otherwise) permits someone to carry/drag/drive something they don't want to someone else's property and leave it there? Recently the headwaters of Beaver Dam Brook has offered challenging conditions for clean up: