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The Sandhills and Piedmont regions of North Carolina have rich biodiversity that should be recognized. The natural beauty is something that you do not see every day, let alone in one place. But Pinehurst Arboretum is home to many natural native plants in its small thirty-five acres. 

The native plants in Pinehurst Arboretum were especially chosen because they were natural to the space being developed for use. Some plants and trees such as Southern Magnolias, were already on the property of the Arboretum when designed. Others that were planted, grew into their natural space, but all plants are native to the region in which Pinehurst Arboretum resides. 

The divided sections of Pinehurst Arboretum, that I mentioned earlier, all have specific native plants that grow in the certain section. The Magnolia Garden obviously has Magnolias, but there are a variety of Magnolia trees, not just the Southern Magnolia. The Flowering Tree Garden, true to its name, has flowering trees of all varieties, dogwoods, witch hazel, and peaches, all live here. The Longleaf Pine Savanna was renewed after a fire. It is home to an abundance of longleaf pines as well as many native types of grass including, switchgrass and wire grass. While the fire destroyed the original longleaf pines, every three to five years there is a controlled burn to help with debris and promote growth in the natural environment. If you look closely at some of the longleaf pine trunks you can make out burn marks from years past. 

All of the native plants were chosen for a reason. When designing Pinehurst Arboretum, Larry Best, founder of the award-winning design firm LandDesign, used the natural space and researched the Sandhills and Piedmont regions. This allowed him to develop and design Pinehurst Arboretum with a focus on the natural environment that was already in the natural space being used as Pinehurst Arboretum. The majority of the trees in the Magnolia Garden were already present when designing the Arboretum. With the Southern Magnolia trees already there they used the native natural plants as a sign to create an area specifically for Magnolias and other trees and plants that were already on the land. Instead of designing Pinehurst Arboretum to be highly groomed, Larry Best designed it to be of use to the already existing natural space and added on only what was a native plant. He created Pinehurst Arboretum to be natural and to use native plants.

There is even a space of native plants that are dedicated to helping wildlife. The Native Pollinator Garden is a space that is certified as a National Wildlife Habitat because of its use for animals and insects. The native plants provide shelter and food for butterflies, bees, and other insects. And with the Garden being all native plants, it helps the insects because the native plants are what butterflies and bees find in an uncontrolled natural environment.

Nature in Pinehurst Arboretum, while controlled in some areas, has been driven by the decision to include native plants. Making it a natural area for all to come and enjoy, full of native plants that provide benefits to animals and humans alike.

Animals

As we know, Asheville’s Town mountain Preserve is a beautiful place. It’s home to some of the most breath-taking views from the mountain tops in all of Asheville, its littered with a beautiful array of different trees, rocks, bushes, creeks, and water streams, and of course is home to some of the most luxurious cabins and houses that a town this size can offer.

What else will you get the chance to see during your stay? The answer may already be obvious, but if you’re looking for the definitive outdoor experience, you will more than likely come into contact with some of the beautiful animals that inhabit Asheville’s hilly, gorgeous mountains.

The Town Mountain Preserve itself doesn’t talk much about its furry inhabitants, so I’ve consulted the explore Asheville page to truly talk about some of a the wildlife one can run into while out in the wild. Elk are just a few of these animals. With their large antlers and furry coats, they make for a magnificent sight to see. While most Elk will be found near Cataloochee, there’s a chance these large creatures may appear in the deep forests of the Preserve.

For bird watchers, there are plenty different kinds of fowl to watch in awe. Bald Eagles are just one of the birds that soar the mountain skies. There are also Peregrine Falcons, Great Blue Herons, and even Woodpeckers. According to exploreasheville.com these are only a small few of 200 different birds that make their home in the mountains before a few migrate south. This makes the town mountain preserve a prime destination for any bird watchers or admirers looking to snap some awesome pics, or just to admire nature with their own two eyes.

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Of course, wherever there are mountains, you can always expect to see a few bears. It’s not too uncommon to spot a bear around the high mountains of Asheville, and this will often be the cause of many people’s curiosity, as well as possible panics. Luckily, Black bears are usually quite harmless unless provoked. These furry animals are adorable and fun to watch, but it’s important to take precautions before enjoying them. Make sure to keep food away from the bears, don’t feed them in any situation. Make sure you valuables are in hard to reach spots, and certainly done make an effort to provoke or egg on any of the bears.

The wildlife at Asheville is certainly a great splendor to see and offers some of the most unique and beautiful animals in North Carolina. get out your bird watching binoculars, and take the proper precautions, and you’ll be sure to see all that the mountains have to offer.

I went walking a couple weeks ago, right after my roommate had arrived back on campus and I had begun to feel cooped up, unable to pace back and forth in the room like I had for the entirety of January. As I rolled through the walkway leading from Founder’s to the road, I realized how often I had taken this path and decided to make my first trip out to the woods. I felt sort of awkward on my way there, suffering from my ever-present feeling that I’m somewhere I don’t really belong or I’m not supposed to be.

The whole time I walked, my somewhat instinctual and somewhat personal fear of snakes was close by. It probably would’ve made more sense if it were my fear of spiders instead, but that seemed further away despite the fact that the forest was likely crawling with them. Snakes have always followed me, often in the form of recurring dreams. I’ve had several dreams where I was bitten by a snake, always either in the right hand or in the face. I thought about my snake dreams as I wandered through the woods, my boots crunching the grass and the blonde-leaved trees standing still as they watched me walk by. I passed little mounds of moss and fungi, green and cream islands in the ocean of fallen leaves. A wide tree toppled over, leaving a crater of red soil in its wake. Shortly after the snake dreams, I always experienced a change in my life, often in the form of loss. I had one before losing a friend, one before changing schools. One heralded the death of my grandfather, who died of liver cancer when I was ten years old.

The snakes have appeared as omens in my real life as well. When I was young, my mother would often take my younger brother and I to roadside parks or soccer fields to play. It didn’t cost much money, and it seemed a sort of adventure back then, getting to see parks all over our little corner of the state. One day, we had gone to a little playground with the usual swing/jungle gym/slide setup. My brother ran out of the car ahead of myself and my mother towards a ramp that led up to the playset. 

Under the ramp, I saw a large red snake with what looked like a spade-shaped head. Alarm bells rang out and I called out to my brother who was running towards it with wild abandon. Years later, I still tell the story sometimes, much to my brother’s chagrin. He is offended that I even jokingly insinuate that I saved his life in some way. “There’s no copperheads in Michigan,” he’d say with a sour look on his face. “Just some garden snake. You made a big deal out of nothing.” 

And perhaps the story is misleading the way I tell it, because I never mention the dreams. I never let slip that maybe my fear was less for my brother’s safety than it was concerned with my own fear of change. 

This picture was taken a couple days after my failed attempt at a walk. My friend and I decided to sit down near the lake instead. In the more woodsy area where geese do not realm. I should note I am very afraid of geese. I do not like geese near me. They’re terrifying creatures. It was a nice, peaceful place. I found an old article in the Guilfordian from 2006 written by Davis Greene called “Sediment build-up deteriorates Guilford’s lake.” This article made me reflect on not only how the lake is now not swimmable but the meaning of it has changed. The article stated that the lake used to be a popular spot to swim and boat but those activities are now banned. As stated by someone from Guilford, it would be a liability to let students swim in the lake. The lake is pretty but I would not go inside and risk getting sick in order to have a swim. Well, I can not even swim so I wouldn’t jump into a body of water without really knowing how deep it is. I have always wanted to canoe in the lake though. That seems a little safer. Technically, you are not in the water. Even so, it’s unfortunate to have lost activities that were so fun. I recall my freshman year the most.

I think it was the happiest time at Guilford honestly. I actually went down to the lake to read all the time. I would go at least twice a week and read a book. This was when I had time to do so. Nowadays, I have been caught up in life and homework. So, I guess this blog is an excuse to be outside. It is really a change of pace from what I am used to. You could usually find me in the Bauman basement in the computer lab or my room. The only thing I really did or do, even before the coronavirus was be in my room. I always had something to do on the computer. Which is to be expected because of my major, Computer Technology Information Systems. Some of my fondest memories are at the lake. It reminds me of happier times. Water in general signifies life. Whether it’s polluted or crystal clear. It’s amazing how things grow with it. For example, algae is still growing in our lake. I know it seems annoying and destructive but it’s still a form of life. I guess you could say any type of life signifies hope in a sense. It is more sad to see nothing grow at all. Also, not to mention those mean geese again but they are still chilling at the lake. Along with some ducks. Those ducks are so much more chill even if one of them did run me off too. Yes, I have a complicated relationship with nature. I like it but it scares me. I still appreciate its beauty and gifts that it gives us.

This obviously a Fatima not in her natural habitat. I had not been to the Guilford woods in a long time. There was a small detail that I had forgotten, it’s freaking muddy! The clothes worn were not appropriate for the weather at the time. It was very uncomfortable.  It reminds me of the year we had several bad storms, I forgot what year. I went for a jog and noticed so many trees had fallen and debris. I had no clue why. Until my mom called and informed me that there was literally a hurricane that had brushed the coast and the effects were felt almost statewide. I had slept through the entire storm. I literally sleep through anything. I had to really train myself to not sleep through my alarms. Even now I still do it. Anyway, there was not much we saw that day. After heavy rainfall the past couple days it was not the best place to stroll around. It is so interesting seeing the remains of an old trail or projects that were done in the woods. The place we were walking led to a bridge that has old stepping stones in front of it. Last time I went there the bridge was broken. It has been repaired though. The other side of the bridge was still a lot muddier than where we had been walking. I have to restate the fact I was not ready for the mud that day. However, it was not all bad. Along our very short way I found a tiny thin tree still attempting to grow. 

It used other trees around it as support. It was a rather unique tree. I could not tell you what type of tree it was. So please refer to the picture above. This reminded me of the time we talked about species interaction in a class once. I can’t remember when exactly but I remember talking about competition, parasitism, commensalism and mutualism. Competition is when two or more species are battling for the energy or food source, which makes both negatively affected. Parasitism is similar but one species is at a disadvantage while the other is benefitting. Commensalism is when one species is benefitting from another but the one is unaffected. Mutualism is when both species are benefiting from the interaction. I say all this to say that even if I do not know close to nothing about nature, I know this one thing about species interaction. Whenever I study the trees or plants, this is kind of what I think about. It’s about the only thing I remember from that class. I think I mainly remember because humans were categorized as parasites in the food web. Which I could not agree more with. You have to wonder what the trees would say if they could talk. Just imagining all the stories they would tell. That’s why it’s so sad when trees are torn down. They have hundreds of years of history.

For my Fall 3-week course I took a geology course. For my final lab for the course, I decided to go into the woods and measure 100 Loblolly Pine tree trunks to find the average circumference of those 100 Loblolly Pine trees in order to be able to find the age of the top two thickest trees.

The processes basically went like this. I got a friend to come with me into the woods and to help find the trees do measurements, then I went and analyzed the data. I logged all the circumferences into a chart on MS Excel, and created categories for each of the measurements to fall into such as 1-2 feet, 2-3 feet, 3-4 feet, 4-5 feet, and 5-6 feet. That way, when I went to make a graph, it wouldn’t have 100 bars for the 100 trees I measured because they would all fall into the catagory of however large their circumference was. From there, I did more analyzing and research, because it’s usually almost impossible to get the exact age of a tree without cutting it down and counting the rings of its trunk. The forula I ended up using was circumfrnce of the trunk divided by Pi to find the diameter, then multiply the diameter by the growth factor, which happened to be 2.19 in order to estimate the overall age of the tree. I only did this for the two thickest trees I found. the tree that was 6 feet around was estibated to be around 50 years old, and the tree that was 6 feet 9 inches around was estimated to be 56.5 years old.

Then I moved on to the importance of why I was doing the experiment and research to start with, which was to show trees and forests roll in climate change, biodiversity, and to talk about the negative impacts of deforestation.

3/6/21

The Guilford Woods has had an alluring aspect to me since I first started going to college here. I didn’t go in at all until my junior year though. A place as large as the Guilford Woods would get me lost in an instant if I went in alone. But it is really a cool place to walk around in when I can manage to get a friend to tag along.

Being in there is like entering a different world. There isn’t the chatter of people that campus always seems to have, or did before the pandemic. All that can be heard are the birds and other wildlife like deer that can be found wandering around in there. It’s also often fairly muddy in there as well, probably because the tree cover doesn’t let in much sun to dry up rain from the storms. The guilford woods is a place that you can get lost in the nature of it all. You can hear the birds chip high above in the trees, smell the wet trodden on earth under your feet, feel the rough bark of the trees all around, see as sunbeams poke though the sea of tree trunks, but just don’t eat the mushrooms you find along the trails.

There is a sharp, translucent clarity on the side of the mountain. The only sounds are the immediate yet invisible sounds of insects, either bees or flies, the distant combustions of the motorcycles, and the wind, voiceless, given voice by trees. It’s almost as if the silence is its own valence, one of the fundamental forces of the mountain, working in tandem with the wind and the fragrance of the mountain laurels. This is not the dampened silence of new snow, but a silence with a bite to it. The silence of those cheap plastic crystal prism things that you get as a fourth grader from natural history museums—made all the more beautiful for all the life parading in a predetermined sweep down the mountains.

Mount Pisgah is the most prototypical mountain on the horizon of my childhood. It is present in the background frame of every memory—that massive signal tower peak visible for miles as a hazy spire. I would see it riding my bike down Clingman avenue, on the skyline past the Bowen Bridge riding the bus home from highschool for those exhilarating few highway-onramp seconds. What made the mountain more than just a recognizable backdrop was personal experience. When you can see a peak and say “I know what all this looks like from all the way up at the top” it changes the perception of the mountain and its neighbors. It stories the geography.

For years my dad and I would drive south from West Asheville past the Arboretum we used to visit for school trips, up into the Blue Ridge Parkway. As we drove through each of the eleven tunnels that had been carved through the rock decades ago our headlights would flick on and off, and I would hold my breath as we entered and keep it in my cheeks until the tunnel spat us out. My friend Raminta once told us that if you hold your breath in a tunnel all the way through with your eyes closed that a penny would fall on your head. I felt the need to test this empirically very often. 

In the Tanakh, the name Pisgah is mentioned in reference to Mount Nebo, a peak on the Abarim range in Jordan. The mountain lies east of the Jordan river and northeast of the Dead Sea, and is apparently where god showed Moses the “whole land from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar.”

Pisgah translates literally from the Hebrew as “summit,” so in all likelihood, some schmuck heard “Pisgah” and just assumed it was a proper name, adding it to the litany of mountains named “mountain” and rivers named “river.” From the summit of Pisgah — our Pisgah — you can see the promised land of Asheville, which is certainly how I felt about it as a kid. The forest opening up briefly to allow the city to poke through. The Biltmore Estate sprouting up from nothing. The parkway winding down the ridge into the city like the Jordan river into the Galilee, concrete flowing to concrete. Every time we hiked the Pisgah summit and saw our promised land, we would pass through landmarks with which we storied our environment. There were about ten of them, and we built a mythos in the milestones.

Part 1: My relationship with the woods and it’s wonderful features

The woods at Guilford have slowly become my favorite location on campus to visit. If it’s sunny and warm or even if it’s a brisk wintery day, I have found a nice long walk through the Guilford woods allows me to escape from the stress of school and of growing up and becoming an adult in today’s day in age. Through my childhood, I most enjoyed my free time in the outdoors. I always had an attraction to the natural world especially in fauna. Since I was young I have had a fascination with birds, bugs, fish, frogs, and many other wild creatures I had spent my time observing. The past few years of my life have been lack-luster when it comes to spending time with nature. Therefor, I am extremely grateful to be living in a place with a great amount of wilderness to roam freely. My first experiences with the Guilford woods were as I began to find the people I really connected with at this school. In most instances a group of us (some intoxicated, few sober) would hang out near on the edge of the woods at night, or take a short walk to the rope-swing which hung from a large tree rooted into the side of a large incline. This is where my seed of connection with these woods was first planted, before I was even aware of it. Typically, my time in the woods was spent at night, interacting with intoxicated adolescents who’s brains were much more active than that of my own. The darkness kept me from viewing all of natures beauty, and the constant rambling of rambling intoxicated teens, also held me back from all the Guilford woods had to offer. After coming back to Guilford at the start of the second semester, there became a lot more time on my own, less people to be with, things to do, and an increased drive to spend my time outdoors. Since coming back to campus, in January, I have gone on many explorations through the woods of Guilford, with and without the accompaniment of a friend.

The map below shows the woods at Guilford College:

There are roughly 240 acres of these woods, with a 0.3 mile trail that provides information related to the underground railroad. I think I could probably say I’ve laid eyes on a lot of these wood’s acreage after going on quite a few adventures in them. From the north apartments, around the lake, down massive hills, and even accidentally wandering into a few people’s backyards, the Guilford woods have a lot to offer. One of my favorite features is the small creek that flows through the property. I love creeks because of the nostalgia they bring to my soul, from all the time I spent around one during my childhood at a family friend’s cabin out in rural Hayesville, North Carolina. The water flowing though an array of beautiful river stones adds a soothing, serendipitous burble to the environment, contributing an auditory element to the experience, pleasing to the ears. The creek is also a source of water, a mandatory element for the wildlife that resides in these woods, and provides a home for many creatures, making these woods all the more exciting. Walking through un-trailed terrain in these woods have proven to have some challenges. One of these challenges is the large area of swamp that can be rather difficult to navigate. Another being a number of fallen trees, a lot of which had fallen during the recent winter storm. Although these inconveniences are apparent, I still have love and appreciation for them, as they add character to these woods.

After I got introduced to the BullHole by my friends I would go sometimes by myself. Not to get into the water or anything but just to sit back and take into account that this place that was unknown to me has became a spot where I come to get away from my responsibilities and problems. There are a lot of spots at the BullHole because it’s also a park. There are waterfalls, fishing spots, trails, etc. So it’s pretty easy to find something to do when you’re out with people.

I don’t know if anybody else chose places that started to become a safety blanket to them. Ya know? A place that they would go when they would find themselves upset or feeling any type of way. But that’s honestly how it felt for me even though I’ve gone a limited amount of times it didn’t matter I still found myself wanting to go back and even missed school to go (yeah it even got that bad)

I’m not going to show any pictures or anything but I just wanted to share the experience I have of going here when I was upset and wanted to be alone. Even willing to miss school and be punished just to be alone and not surrounded by the people that I know. I don’t regret it but I definitely could’ve did something else but the scenery and the space to just be able to think is unmatched.