walking – Walking in the Woods

Lincoln’s Adams Woods

A November walk.

We got out of the house around 10 and headed over to Lincoln to explore Adams Woods, a Lincoln Land Conservation property. It is about 100 acres in size and borders Walden Pond. The first challenge was finding a trailhead access point and a place where we could park the car. Talking to a guy raking leaves I find out it was just behind the sign that says “No Parking.” Once that was all behind us, and we got the boy in his carrier and on our back, we were on our way.

the boy and the trail — Walden Pond in the background

It was a beautiful fall day and the property, and the trails, were just great. The center of Adams Woods is fairly flat and level but around the edges there are some ups and downs around various water related features. To the south, and along what is roughly the boundary, is a trail that runs along what is called Heywood’s Brook. It ends at a meadow, which in turn looks out over Fairhaven Bay. To the northwest are Andromeda Ponds. These are a series of bog ponds that Thoreau visited and wrote about in his journal. This was not a far walk for Thoreau as the ponds and this property border the southwestern edge of Walden Pond.

There were a number of horses out and about on the trails, and even more runners, but all of our encounters with others were pleasant. The various water bodies and the related topography associated with them were really great. The New England woods in autumn are interesting enough but with all the leaves off the trees you could really see into some nice brooks, wetlands, and the bogs.

Some of the reading I did about Adams Woods in the “Guide to Conservation Land in Lincoln” says that things look much different here in the past. The small meadow stretched along the whole length of Heywood’s Brook, for instance. It is also sure that this being Massachusetts that the forest throughout here has been reworked in many ways. This includes Thoreau and a friend starting a forest fire when they were cooking some fish.

Manning State Forest, MA

Today the wife and I went for a ride to New Hampshire. On the way we stopped off in Billerica, MA and visited the Warren H Manning State Forest. There is a pull off into a small parking area off of Route 129. The parking lot has a building with bathrooms but they were closed. It was a bit of surprise to find both picnic tables and barbecue grills. I’m just not used to seeing those combos in state parks.That was not my only surprise.

After heading down the path leading off the parking lot we quickly reached what seemed an unusual playground. Check it out….

manning-forest

It is a little tricky to see (I’m not the best photographer and the light was tricky) but there are a few scattered structures here. It turns out this is a small water park. The tall flower structure, which I was wondering how a kid might climb on it, is not to climb on but to splash down water. This was the same for each of the separate pieces.

The little bit of the forest we saw was not to exciting. A lot of pines which must have been planted long ago to replace the state’s forest timber harvest. Still, it was a beautiful part of a nice fall day and a walk in the woods is almost always a welcome respite.

Summer is Finally Here!

It is great how the weather of June and July has finally left us behind. The dog days of August are just not going to be that bad this year as we have suffered through so little heat this year. I just hope it is not a long cold winter as it will seem twice as long!

Not much to report. Just a short walk around the Rez today. With the sun and heat there were plenty of people the beach. The water in the Rez is thick with lots of vegetation. There is no doubt that it has accumulated so many nutrients and is choking on its own growth of water plants. I think the cooler weather also helped in the early summer. It did something to really stimulate growth and contribute to the profusion.

Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary

Last weekend I went to the Audobon Ipswich River property. My first time there. It was a short visit, by design, so I was only able to begin to get a feel for the place. There were a few cool things of note.

There was a beaver lodge built onto one of the decks that was crossing some water/wetland. I have never seen a lodge built onto a man made structure like that before. It was also funny that the managers were obviously trying to save some of the trees from the teeth of the beaver. There were trees that were started into and then covered up at the base in chicken wire. Some trees were already shot, in that the beaver had already stripped the cambium of the tree all the way aroudn. I wonder if the chicken wire will work for the trees that were not already done for?

Another thing that I apparently just missed was some small bird being the meal for a hawk. There was a big pile of feathers on top of and underneath a picnic table right next to the main parking lot. It is crazy how many feathers birds do have, which is made abundantly clear when you see something like this just plucked bird meal.