Lily, J, and I went on a little adventure to show each other our beloved phenology spots. We started off at Lily’s spot behind the back five of trinity because of how close it was to our dorm. When we got there I had spotted some fruit growing that looked and felt exactly like little baby grapes. I wanted to try one so very bad, but I didn’t because I did not want to get sick. After examining the grapes we heard some rustling and saw a little chipmunk by the dumpster to our right. He was very cute. Once our excitement died down we went in Lily’s area and explored a bit. There were a bunch of paper birch and red maples behind the fenced area of the back five. As we were making our way out to get breakfast we caught a really cool view of South Burlington over the chain link fence in the parking lot.
We went to breakfast at Central where I got my classic all potatoes plate for breakfast. One of the staple UVM Dining food groups has gotten to be potatoes, along with waffles of course. After our meal we made our trek to Centennial Forest to see my phenology spot. When we got there it was super muddy and slippery. This is probably from all the rain we had gotten this weekend. There were also a lot more leaves on the ground since the last time I had been there. At the teepee area that I have been watching on my left as I go into my spot there were two pumpkins that have been there since around Halloween. They were surprisingly still in one piece and were holding up well. We carefully walked down the mini hill to my spot where my favorite big rock was. And as always I checked to see if the bones I had found during my first visit were still there and they were! After the bone check I walked in the stream a bit to turn over the rocks and look for worms. No worms this time, I think it’s starting to get a bit cold for them or that they have traveled further down stream. We made our way out of the forest and onto a bus to J’s spot.
When we arrived we went over a wood-pallet-like rickety bridge to get deeper into the natural area of J’s spot. We went past this really jank looking tree that’s trunk was really bent as we made our way down the hill. After that we saw a bunch of those fluffy flowers that I love so much. I often see the seeds of them flying around campus in puffballs. I think they are called asters. Then I got really excited because we saw slugs!! So many of them too. There was a dark one on a big log and some olive greenish ones in the grass. As we made our way through I noticed that there were a bunch of large rotten and decaying trees in this area. One big tree was dead right by where the river had a little stream coming off of it. It was cool to see another body of water that wasn’t Centennial Brook or Lake Champlain. Not they they are bad, but it’s good to get more varied experience. After seeing J’s spot we made our way home to study for our upcoming midterms this week.