Barney, and me.

This is the very first picture that I took of Barney. On Tuesdays this past semester, I would begin my day by waking up at 8:50 am to get ready for my 9:30 class. Afterwards, I would walk roughly 10 blocks to arrive at the Terra Trace apartment complex. In the absence of a camera, I would take out my laptop, open up photo booth, turn up the brightness on my computer to 100%, and try to find a new angle of Barney that I would capture. I never wanted to post the same perspective as a picture I had previously taken (until today, but the purpose of  the reshowing this photo is purely for nostalgia's sake).

It began with me standing out in the cold, holding the laptop with my bare hands, trying to angle my computer so that I could have a worthwhile picture. Luckily it never rained while I was trying to snap off a photo. But after I got the shot I wanted, I would head into the apartment complex where I would see two of my friends, Emily and Sully. At first they wondered what I was doing, and I explained to them that I was blogging about one of the trees in the courtyard, Barney. They became accustomed to this taking place every Tuesday, so after a while they would ask how Barney was doing, and even tell me about their observations about Barney.

It didn't stop there. I would be over at their place, hanging out and whatnot, and we would be out on the deck, sometimes just Sully and myself, and we would talk about Barney. Mostly about how he's budding, how beautiful he is--things of that nature. More importantly though, it would spark conversation about the environment and our place in it. Barney slowly didn't just become a tree known by 3 people, he became a symbol for me and friends.

Most people would look at the task of blogging about a tree and not think much of it. Someone having to do it might scoff at the task, consider it a waste of time. I'll admit, at times the prompts were not my favorite. Each week I knew that on Tuesday I would blog about Barney and I decided to take advantage of that opportunity.

Barney, it was fun. I will continue to see you throughout my time at IU. Swing easy in the breeze my friend.

James Gross

The Linden Tree (and other things)

Little 5...

Is there more to say? IU students, faculty, residents of Bloomington, the state of Indiana, alumni, even Lance Armstrong, know the significane of the past weekend--and so do all the trees, flowers, shrubs, bushes, and grass; to name just a few members of the biotic environment.

An immediate survey of Barney and his surrounding area, in conjunction with a minimal amount of observation, it's fair for me to conclude that there weren't any negative ramifications from the previous week's festivities.

Now, that's not true for other areas of campus. The overall impact of Little 5 can be fully realized upon analysis of a few basic actions: many people from across the state--and country--come in to visit and partake in the festivities. There's definitely an associative cost involved. I personally had visitors from Madison, Wisconsin, East Lansing, Michigan, Chicago, Illinois, New York, New York...so I think that speaks for itself in terms of resource consumption that didn't even directly happen in Bloomington.

Trash.

That's another direct side effect of Little 5. Although, apparently there were 271 fine citizens who were able to partake in trash pick up last Sunday. So Bloomington did take some action to mitigate the negative environmental effects from the week. Another brief component I might add would be the concerts and the efforts taken to get the bands in here and the stages, the congregation of people, possible noise pollution, so on and so forth.

Below is a picture of a Linden tree.

In the spirit of Linden Whitt; my good friend and neighbor who left us this past Saturday.

Linden Whitt

1992-2012

"A little bit of the unpredictable and a lot of playing the piano."

Socio-Environmental Sustainability...What Fun!

I would venture to guess that the area surrounding Barney is an area that is could be considered socio-environmentally friendly. In the courtyard where Barney resides, there is designated green space amongst the built environment. This is important for a number of reasons: it allows wildlife to create habitats, humans to enjoy the outdoors, and natural environmental cycles to continue relatively unobstructed.

Should we do more?

Would it make sense to picket Terra Trace for crimes against the environment?

Can we speculate as to what would happen if members of Green Peace converged onto this piece of property?? (Oh, the possibilities!)

A definite answer would be...probably not. The environment surrounding Barney is a positive socio-environmental zone. The squirrels scamper around with ease. The birds chirp and mate in tree branches. Humans look out and say "nature...hell yes." The courtyard scores an A-.

A Tree Grows in a Courtyard.

Barney is surrounded by apartments, sidewalks, stones, concrete, a pool, gravel, shrubs, bushes, fellow compatriots (trees), and grass. In terms of Barney's ability to live, he receives plenty of sunlight and water. However, I'm not sure how much of his root growth is obstructed by the built environment, or if this is even a problem.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure what is feasible to do, in order to make this area more sustainable. The close proximity of the apartments to one another doesn't provide much of an opportunity for improvement. Especially with there being a pool right in the middle of the courtyard. Perhaps the only real solution would be to make the buildings surrounding Barney more environmentally friendly, that way they are more sustainable and helping to improve Bloomington's sustainability.

Who Are You?

The first thing I looked at when I visited Barney today was his branches to see if they were opposite or alternating--what I found was that they were opposite. When referencing trees native to Indiana, there are only seven trees that have opposite branches: boxelder, white ash, buckeye, sugar maple, silver maple, red maple, and dogwood. My instinct told me that Barney's leaves look unlike any tree leaves that I observed during my time in Dunn Woods the previous week. After consulting my trusty tree chart, I concluded that my instinct was right. Barney is not a tree native to Indiana.

Barney's leaves are unique. They are small and thin, and have a light green color to them. They aren't in clusters, and the leaf itself is light, so I ruled out that I may have misdiagnosed the branches as being opposite because according to our tree chart, the silhouette of a shingle oak leaf looks similar, but it's not a shingle oak. I am confident in that. If you look closely at Barney's bark, it looks a big shaggy, or scaly:

He's a pretty big tree and by that nature, I guess that he's been around for a while. I'm going to say that he was probably planted there. But what I'm wondering is why an apartment complex was built around him, and what the reason might have been, if there is one, for Barney not being removed? His location is interesting. Anyway, Barney is enjoying spring and at some point I will identify who he truly is.