#10 Boston - Grassy, Buggy, Spidery Pond - August 12, 2005
"Grassy Pond" actually was the name of our hiking destination this past weekend, but the "buggy, spidery" had to be added in light of the assailment by small insectoid members of the animal kingdom that took place around there. Located in Acton, Mass, 25 miles north of Boston, this 95-acre conservation parcel was quite charming, well maybe except for the spiders, blood-sucking mosquitoes and wayyyy too much poison ivy. (http://town.acton.ma.us/LSCOM/DescGrassyPond.htm). The website says that the pond is "a naturally occurring kettle hole resulting from a glaciers’ retreat, and it exhibits bog characteristics around its perimeter. Nowhere is the Pond more than 15 feet deep, although the level has fluctuated in recent years due to beaver activity". Beavers, again!! I have yet to see one of those darn critters, and I am starting to get really irritated with the cat and mouse game they are playing with me! All I need to see is one! My friend Roger promised me 65,000 of them!!
The hike, or walk was more like it, was yet another Boot Boutwell Nature Hike, stimulating as always, with new exciting plant finds including a lovely little orchid - the downy rattlesnake plantain (http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/goodyerapube.html), a wonderful swamp with dazzling red dragonflies holding on for just a split second to be admired by us, generous patches of skunk cabbage and Boot quoting a poem about duckweed by England's own Alfred Noyes, called "Daddy fell into the Pond":
"Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey. We had nothing to do and nothing to say. We were nearing the end of a dismal day, and then there seemed to be nothing beyond, Then - Daddy Fell into the Pond. And everyone's face grew merry and bright, And Timothy danced for sheer delight. "Give me the camera, quick, oh quick! He's crawling out of the duckweed!" Click! Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee, And doubled up, shaking silently, And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft, And it sounded as if the old drake laughed. Oh, there wasn't a thing that didn't respond - When Daddy Fell into the pond!"
The duckweed was a fascinating little story, it has the honor to be the smallest flowering plant in the world, and it has even some folklore associated with it. The legend of Jenny Greenteeth originated in Eastern Europe - she was a water mermaid who charmed passers-by with her song so that they would drown themselves in the pond or lake at hand. The BBC web site says that "some believe that Jenny was merely an alias for duckweed that could wrap itself around the leg of an individual and trap them under water, a danger to small children if they caught themselves in it." Other favorites for the day included two club mosses, the princess pine and the ground cedar who look just like little miniature pine trees, and the patridge berry, a small creeping evergreen with bright red berries.
After a cup of coffee and some munchkins with my hiking buddy Rick at Dunkin' Donuts (a MUST in Massachusetts - we love Dunkin D's!!) it was time for some real exercise, which due to the continuing heat had to take place indoors in the gym. The evening was closed out with movies courtesy of Netflix and early bedtime, as I was heading to the center of our wonderful Commonwealth on Sunday AM.
My friend Gerald was visiting from Oklahoma, attending a molecular biology workshop at Smith College in Northhampton (http://www.smith.edu/). Smith College itself was founded in 1871 and is one of the premier private liberal arts colleges for women in the US, part of the "Seven Sisters", a league of women's colleges that was seen as the response to the Ivy League Schools and as a statement in the mid-19th century debate about the value of women attending college (Who knows what it could lead to? What's next? They don't want to have children??). Northhampton and Smith College are very charming, with loads of nice places to eat, in particular famous Herrell's ice cream, founded by Steve Herrell, who is considered by many responsible for the renaissance of homemade gourmet ice cream. His business started out as Steve's Ice Cream here in Somerville and eventually relocated to Northhampton. Killer flavors, tons of them (must be a hundred or so), in particular the Dutch Orange Chocolate, which I consumed as a keg-size milk shake. Yumm, yumm, yumm!
The main part of the day though was spent, yes, you guessed right, hiking - this time up Mt. Tom, the resident mountain near Northhampton, which offered wonderful vistas of the Connecticut River Valley, plenty of opportunities to sit and eat blueberries, and for me to throw my newly acquired plant knowledge at Gerald. He is a plant biologist, so he did not mind too much, and we had quite a fabulous time up there. http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/337_mount_tom.cfm. Some of Gerald's not-so-hiking experienced workshop colleagues had enthusiastically decided to go up Mt Monadnock in New Hampshire that day and looking at them returning home, outta gas and utterly sapped, made us feel pretty good about our choice.
I was pretty glad I did my share of hiking, as I got stuck on my way home on the world's biggest parking lot, the Mass Turnpike, for the next three hours and only returned to Boston in the dark.
It has been an interesting week, with the usual exercise routines, running along the Charles River, more visitors (met my friend Frank from my home town for a nice dinner at "The King and I'" Thai restaurant on Charles Street on Tuesday), and an excursion with Wednesday night's running group to the Irish bar "Kinsale" on Tremont Street. We sat out on the patio and got quite a floor show from the Boston PD and some bomb-sniffing dogs who were investigating a "suspicious package" at Government Center.
Work in particular has a different spin for me for the next six weeks as I am helping out at the Office for the Protection of Research Subjects, which is part of the 7-institution cancer center consortium I am involved with (the Dana-Farber Harvard Cancer Center). Until the new director shows up in mid-September, I am managing an office of 12 (with help from some experienced colleagues of course), and it will be definitely an opportunity to "learn and excel" as they say. Very nice people there, which is good, but driving across town every day in Boston traffic has its moments, not all of them good. Mobile Hysteria at its best, to quote Bill Bryson again!
Time to go, but not without leaving you with a word that sums up the week nicely: "There is always one more imbecile than you counted on".
Have a good one!
pet:)
The hike, or walk was more like it, was yet another Boot Boutwell Nature Hike, stimulating as always, with new exciting plant finds including a lovely little orchid - the downy rattlesnake plantain (http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/goodyerapube.html), a wonderful swamp with dazzling red dragonflies holding on for just a split second to be admired by us, generous patches of skunk cabbage and Boot quoting a poem about duckweed by England's own Alfred Noyes, called "Daddy fell into the Pond":
"Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey. We had nothing to do and nothing to say. We were nearing the end of a dismal day, and then there seemed to be nothing beyond, Then - Daddy Fell into the Pond. And everyone's face grew merry and bright, And Timothy danced for sheer delight. "Give me the camera, quick, oh quick! He's crawling out of the duckweed!" Click! Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee, And doubled up, shaking silently, And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft, And it sounded as if the old drake laughed. Oh, there wasn't a thing that didn't respond - When Daddy Fell into the pond!"
The duckweed was a fascinating little story, it has the honor to be the smallest flowering plant in the world, and it has even some folklore associated with it. The legend of Jenny Greenteeth originated in Eastern Europe - she was a water mermaid who charmed passers-by with her song so that they would drown themselves in the pond or lake at hand. The BBC web site says that "some believe that Jenny was merely an alias for duckweed that could wrap itself around the leg of an individual and trap them under water, a danger to small children if they caught themselves in it." Other favorites for the day included two club mosses, the princess pine and the ground cedar who look just like little miniature pine trees, and the patridge berry, a small creeping evergreen with bright red berries.
After a cup of coffee and some munchkins with my hiking buddy Rick at Dunkin' Donuts (a MUST in Massachusetts - we love Dunkin D's!!) it was time for some real exercise, which due to the continuing heat had to take place indoors in the gym. The evening was closed out with movies courtesy of Netflix and early bedtime, as I was heading to the center of our wonderful Commonwealth on Sunday AM.
My friend Gerald was visiting from Oklahoma, attending a molecular biology workshop at Smith College in Northhampton (http://www.smith.edu/). Smith College itself was founded in 1871 and is one of the premier private liberal arts colleges for women in the US, part of the "Seven Sisters", a league of women's colleges that was seen as the response to the Ivy League Schools and as a statement in the mid-19th century debate about the value of women attending college (Who knows what it could lead to? What's next? They don't want to have children??). Northhampton and Smith College are very charming, with loads of nice places to eat, in particular famous Herrell's ice cream, founded by Steve Herrell, who is considered by many responsible for the renaissance of homemade gourmet ice cream. His business started out as Steve's Ice Cream here in Somerville and eventually relocated to Northhampton. Killer flavors, tons of them (must be a hundred or so), in particular the Dutch Orange Chocolate, which I consumed as a keg-size milk shake. Yumm, yumm, yumm!
The main part of the day though was spent, yes, you guessed right, hiking - this time up Mt. Tom, the resident mountain near Northhampton, which offered wonderful vistas of the Connecticut River Valley, plenty of opportunities to sit and eat blueberries, and for me to throw my newly acquired plant knowledge at Gerald. He is a plant biologist, so he did not mind too much, and we had quite a fabulous time up there. http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/337_mount_tom.cfm. Some of Gerald's not-so-hiking experienced workshop colleagues had enthusiastically decided to go up Mt Monadnock in New Hampshire that day and looking at them returning home, outta gas and utterly sapped, made us feel pretty good about our choice.
I was pretty glad I did my share of hiking, as I got stuck on my way home on the world's biggest parking lot, the Mass Turnpike, for the next three hours and only returned to Boston in the dark.
It has been an interesting week, with the usual exercise routines, running along the Charles River, more visitors (met my friend Frank from my home town for a nice dinner at "The King and I'" Thai restaurant on Charles Street on Tuesday), and an excursion with Wednesday night's running group to the Irish bar "Kinsale" on Tremont Street. We sat out on the patio and got quite a floor show from the Boston PD and some bomb-sniffing dogs who were investigating a "suspicious package" at Government Center.
Work in particular has a different spin for me for the next six weeks as I am helping out at the Office for the Protection of Research Subjects, which is part of the 7-institution cancer center consortium I am involved with (the Dana-Farber Harvard Cancer Center). Until the new director shows up in mid-September, I am managing an office of 12 (with help from some experienced colleagues of course), and it will be definitely an opportunity to "learn and excel" as they say. Very nice people there, which is good, but driving across town every day in Boston traffic has its moments, not all of them good. Mobile Hysteria at its best, to quote Bill Bryson again!
Time to go, but not without leaving you with a word that sums up the week nicely: "There is always one more imbecile than you counted on".
Have a good one!
pet:)
posted by My Boston at
8:45 AM
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