I began my journey walking south from CCRH heading down behind the admissions office where I came across a grove of birch trees, I thought they were very pretty and I took a moment to enjoy them before moving on. I walked down South Prospect Street all the way past campus and the golf course entrance, paying attention to trees along the way. I turned west on Ledge Road toward the lake and right on the hilltop I found an old farmhouse situated slightly misaligned from the rest of the neighborhood, I hypothesized that this was likely one of the original houses, probably from a farm before the city expanded through it. At Shelburne Road I turned south and then East on Hoover Street, this brought me to the quarry. I wandered over to a little low area filled with water right up against the back face of the cliff. The amount of macroinvertebrates that were visible just swimming about surprised me. I saw diving beetles, water boatmen, and two very large caddisfly larvae, along with quite a few others that I wasn’t able to identify. Moving on I found some slug eggs and watched a snail for a few minutes. A blue jay swooped past me and while searching for it in the trees a male and female cardinal landed on a branch. leaving the quarry I came across Dunkin’ Donuts where I used my $5 gift card for an avocado toast. On my way back to campus I pondered the wide variety of architecture styles in Burlington and what influences different groups of people have had on the city. Lastly I found a very vibrant ginkgo tree and stopped for a moment.
