dchuba229's Journal

Today my family came up to visit for the long weekend, and in order to entertain them for a long period of time, I brought them to the Blue Hill Reservation to hike along the red dot trail to the different look out points. The trail was rather steep but all in all not to strenuous. While on the hike, my observations were limited to the plants around us since the area did not seem to have much diversity otherwise. There was a vast amount of fir trees near the trail head and they became the only type we saw as we raised in elevation. The change wasn't too drastic but the trees did thin out as we went. I did notice from the lookout point that it was incredibly interesting to see some clusters of trees that were already changing colors surrounded by pines that remained green. The weather was beautiful at about 70 degrees Fahrenheit and I quite enjoyed the brisk breeze that came along with it. Overall I had a calming time walking through the woods with my family which was surprising considering how often we tend to argue.

Accompanied by my two roommates, we traversed our way to Houghton's Gardens where we began our nature walk. The weather was rather comfortable, sitting at around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, with a sunny atmosphere and nice cool breeze on the Sunday afternoon. Despite our upbeat climate, spirits were rather low amongst the three of us as we got ourselves lost on our way to our destination. We made many an observation of the fungi we found. The calming atmosphere was encouraging as we tried to make the best despite our exasperation. We did manage to see a lot of squirrels and adorable chipmunks along the trail. I found it incredibly interesting to see the river at a standstill covered with algae. There wasn't much water that was exposed to the air that wasn't covered in the green organisms. All in all, upon our return from the walk I felt better than when we first departed and quite enjoyed the gardens themselves.

Together with two of my fellow classmates, we set out on a nature hike through the Webster Conservation Area on Hammond Pond Parkway in Newton, MA. It was a nice day, slightly overcast with low levels of humidity and a temperature of 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The trail we stuck too was rather windy and secluded, but you could hear a set of train tracks not too far away. There was plenty of flora in the area with different kinds of plants and even some tiny orange berries growing at ground level next to a tree, however, we were out looking specifically for different types of fungi. During our initial path into the woods, we were rather ignorant with our search and started by searching for mushrooms or something of the like that might appear the same. Not until we reached the end of the trail did we realize that the small organisms growing on the dead trees are also considered fungi and took pictures of them. We found common lichens and crowded parchment on two separate logs and on the return trip we saw more examples of the same we had passed without realizing. Overall a fantastic adventure with my friends that I would look forward to doing again sometime.