Maps

Maps

April 2014

Before we go on exploring the pond some more, I thought it would be a good idea to get some bearings.  To provide that, I went to Cottonwood Pond and did a series of drawings from various angles. Some are more like maps, while others are more like sketches, and some are a combination.  None of them are to scale – that is for certain. I have no skills or experience with this sort of thing. These are just rough impressions of where I am.

Readers can match these drawings/maps to photos and descriptions of Cottonwood Pond and its environs in previous and future blog postings, and can refer back to these when they might help get bearings on what it going on in one of the adventures.

Whenever there are large changes, I'll do new maps.

We will start with an overhead, bird's-eye view of Cottonwood Pond and its surroundings, in the lowest part of the woods.

In the middle of the page is the Root Ball (RB) of the fallen Cottonwood tree – truly the center of everything about this.  The bottom of the root ball (which is full of roots and rootlets and dried mud) faces Cottonwood Pond (CP).  The top of the Root Ball is full of vegetation – grasses, Stinging Nettle, etc.  There are new Elderberry shrubs growing to the SE side (right side of Root Ball in drawing). Extending beyond the Root Ball, toward the top of the page, is the Cottonwood Trunk (CW Tr.) of the fallen tree.  If you could see beyond here, you would see the trunk rising gradually, and the top of the tree ending lodged in the “v” of a two-trunk Red Oak at the top of the slope.

I marked the “deep spot” of Cottonwood Pond – this is the deepest place, where I take the depth measurements.

To the right you see where the Young Maple tree (YM) is located, where the Bent Blue Beech (BBB) grows from near the pond and extends beyond the Root Ball, and where the old Barkless Log (BL L) extends over the Creek (at the bottom of the page), along the edge of the pond, and beyond, where it forks into to limbs.

The Very Rotten Log (VRL) also crosses the creek (and I use it to do so, myself), lays across the ground to the SW of the pond, and extends under and beyond the Barkless Log, where it becomes so rotten it disappears gradually into the ground, where water tends to pool.

The “New Creek” in the upper right is what happens during and after heavy rains.  It comes from along the base of the slopes, flows partly into a place where a “Swampy Spot” is developing, flows under the fallen Cottonwood Trunk (on its way to “little pond”), and also flows to three inlets at the south edge of Cottonwood Pond, called Inlet (I), New Inlet (NI) and Newest Inlet (NWI).

“Little pond” (lp) is seen to the left of Cottonwood Trunk.  It varies in size from a puddle close to the trunk to the way it is now – spread out around the area, causing a swampy, soggy place.  When it does this, and Isthmus (IS) develops between “little pond” and Cottonwood Pond, flowing past (or sometimes around) the Two-Trunk Tree (2-T Tree) on the left.  There are now piles of Mud Deposits (M) on the north corner of Cottonwood Pond, under the Root Ball.

From the NW corner there is a Seep.  When the pond is over-full, water seeps from that corner on a slight downhill to the Creek below.  The Creek flows from right to left in this drawing.  Next to the Barkless Log over the Creek, there is the Pond-Like Place (PLP) that developed after many times of rushing water shoved under the log and carved out this spot.

This is more of a sketch, done while standing across the Creek, looking toward Cottonwood Pond.  Comparing this to the overhead map, you can now see the bottom of the Root Ball with roots and little holes, Cottonwood Pond below it, and the Mud Deposits to the left of the Root Ball. You can see the Creek at the bottom of the page winding its way under both the Very Rotten Log and the Barkless Log, where the Pond-Like Place is.  To the right the Barkless Log stretches across to the Root Ball and over the other end of the Very Rotten Log.  There is the Bent Blue Beech growing and bending to the Root Ball, many small branches growing upwards from the bent trunk.  The Young Maple at the edge of the pond, which often has a water mark that tells me how high the pond water had gotten, grows between the Very Rotten Log and the pond.

You can see the fallen Cottonwood Trunk extending beyond the Root Ball at the top of the page, with “little pond” to its left.  You can see the Isthmus between “little pond” and Cottonwood Pond that develops after heavy rain around the left end of the Root Ball, going past the Two-Trunk Tree (which has a hole in the base) and around the Mud Deposits.  Coming further down, you see the Seep from the corner of the pond, emptying into the Creek. 

We have come full circle around the place.  Now let's look at various views …

Now we are standing off to the north side, looking at the fallen Cottonwood Trunk, the top of the Root Ball, and “little pond” below.  I have included various squiggly lines to show the original size of “little pond” and the various extensions of its borders, depending on the amount of rain.  There is the unfortunate Bush Honeysuckle next to the Trunk, which will be removed.  You can see how the Trunk slopes upward.  This is where Mystery Mammal had traipsed around and under, and where water flows from the Temporary Creek from the east, under the trunk to seep into “little pond”. 

Then, “little pond” sometimes leeks past the Two-Trunk Tree on the right, and through the Isthmus, into Cottonwood Pond.  In this map, you can barely see, on the right side, where water then moves from the corner of Cottonwood Pond through the Seep.

In the upper right, there is the Barkless Log extending beyond the Root Ball, as well as the Bent Blue Beech doing the same thing above it.

Now lets stoop under the fallen Cottonwood Trunk and slip to the other side (taking care not to bump our heads on the end of the Barkless Log that sticks up, as I have done) and take a look at things from that side.  Here, we are on the southeast side of the Trunk.  The Temporary Creek sends an Intermittent Water Flow down toward the Trunk (going below the Barkless Log) and into “little pond”.  You can see that the Barkless Log forks off, near the Root Ball, into two large limbs.  You can see the new Elderberry Plants growing around that fork and at the edge of the Root Ball.  The Root Ball top, covered with vegetation, towers over “little pond”.  Peeking around the left edge, we can see part of Cottonwood Pond. The Temporary Creek has also sent water flowing to that area, under the Barkless Log.

Now we scoot farther over to the left (to the southwest) and look at everything from that view.  We have to be careful where we step to avoid the new Swampy Spot, where some new kinds of plants are growing, and to not get our feet stuck in the sloppy, soaked area around here.  After all those hard rains and snow melt, water started flowing more toward Cottonwood Pond, giving it a periodic fresh influx.  An Inlet had developed some time ago, going under the Barkless Log, alongside the Very Rotten Log (which is Very Rotten on this side).  It has become gradually enlarged.  Then another one, the New Inlet, developed close to the Root Ball.  After yet more rain, the Newest Inlet developed on the other side of the Very Rotten Log. 

You can see the Bent Blue Beech bending to and across the Root Ball, and the Young Maple growing tall and straight as the edge of Cottonwood Pond.  The Root Ball bottom now tilts slightly over the pond after the whole Root Ball started sinking more deeply into the very saturated ground.  The Seep flows from the far edge of the pond toward the southwest (where it eventually empties into the Creek.)

I hope this has made the area more clear rather than more confusing, and that it lends some structure and light to future shared adventures at Cottonwood Pond.