The Beginning of an Adventure

To start off on this Honors College adventure, I decided to interact with one of my favorite places in Burlington: Salmon Hole.  I believe it is called Salmon Hole because it used to (and may still) have a Salmon Run and it is basically a hole of nature in a doughnut of industrialization.  As you can see from these first couple maps I have posted, Salmon Hole is actually right on the Winooski River in a part of Burlington where the town of Winooski is right across the water.

The Salmon Hole area in 1999

...and in 2004

The first image there was taken by the great folks at Google in 1999; the second picture in 2004.  Even in only five years, you can see how the Burlington island (on the left of the peninsula — remember what I am calling all these features, I will be talking about them throughout the semester!) has changed.  We can see that the water level was not what really changed the ecosystem on the island because where there was a sand bar by the Winooski island (on the left, above the blue border line) in 1999, it is now underwater in 2004 whereas the Burlington island has lost many of its trees and has itself developed a sand bar just to the right of where the last trees remain.  These two pictures are clearly either spring or summer pictures, so I can analyze this for myself later in the semester.  For now, let's look at some pictures of things I saw when I went there on February 7th!

The Whole of Salmon Hole

As I sauntered down to Salmon Hole, I decided to take a stroll through Centennial Woods, in order to not only enjoy my sense of place in my Place but to also enjoy the process that got me to my place.  While meandering meaningfully, I thought about things like the processes that develop everyday in the natural ecosystems through which I walked and drew parallels to my own process of developing my walk and developing my Place.  Chunks of snow fell regularly off the trees — if it wasn't for me, no human would ever see the randomness in the falling snow chunks; would I have similar moments while being in my Place?  Would I be the only one, for example, to see a little songbird attacking a red-tailed hawk, just as I saw when I got to my Place?...

It's tough to see, but there is a little bird just to the left of the larger hawk 

I guess now is as good a time as any to launch in to talking about my Place.  My Place is a beautiful Place.  You walk down a road and dive in to some trees, down a steep slope, and emerge out of the woods into a beautiful view of snow, water, and ice.  The beautiful thing about this Place is that although it is right on the border of two large towns (Burlington and Winooski), the first thing you notice is in fact the natural aspect of the Place, and then you slowly start to pick out the manmade features.  Even though the river is semi-frozen, you can still hear her rushing over the rocks and carving through the ice, essentially eliminating the noise created by anything manmade.  

Some ice hovering precariously over the water that carved it into
this incredible structure

When I first got to Salmon Hole, I wandered around a bit and took lots of pictures of the ice and water, noticing how, in the untouched snow, my eyes went crazy because there were no impurities or changes in texture or color of the snow.  After walking around for a good amount of time, I decided it was time to go and started to trek out just when a red-tailed hawk caught my eye.  He was circling around right above the islands and slowly made his way back to the smokestack (you can see it in the panorama picture).  Just before reaching the smokestack, the little songbird came out and started annoying the tail feathers out of this hawk!  Some time later, the two birds zoomed right past the smokestack and caused a flock of even smaller birds to take off and surround the two bigger birds in a cloud of feathered confusion...

A medley of beautiful creatures — any ornithologist's dream

But wait! The excitement isn't over yet!  As the flock of feathers disappeared into the clouds, I sighed merrily and carried on my way.  Out of the open coast and into the woods I went, just as a flash of brown caught my eye.  At first I thought it was a waxwing, but then a red lightening bolt shot straight in and I realized I was watching two lovely cardinals dance in the snow.  Here is a picture of the male (I couldn't get my camera out in time to catch a good picture of the female — she blended right in with the trees): 

In the end, it was all more than a beginning — not just a beginning, a middle, and an end, but a process that brought me from the beginning to the end.  

And don't worry, this post isn't nearly the end —

It's only just the beginning.