Such Refuge

Photo by Roy Barnacle

Today was another day of discovery for me.

Roy took me for an early morning hike along the walking trails on the former Hamlen Farms in Wayland. You may remember that this town is 40% in conservation lands of one type or another. This piece encompasses not only an ancient farm, whose stone walls still trace their way through the woods, but also Wayland's former reservoirs. Here are some scenes along the way:

Here's Roy, giving scale to the former
baby pines that grew up when Farmer
Hamlen ceased tilling his soil.

Roy took this one; I threw the stone.
We are standing on a sluice way between
two sections of the former reservoir.

I should have put an object in to give
scale to this beaver colony's abandoned
  project. The tree is BIG. There was plenty
of evidence that beaver were active when
the  water level was higher.

You'll just have to imagine how red this
cardinal flower really was.

It's hard to remember that there's trouble anywhere in the world,
as you walk along these trails.

Bushes crowd the path across a causeway. You may
not be able to see the LBB hopping along ahead of us.

 What's an LBB, you say? Ask my son-in-law, Rob.
(OK, it's a "little brown bird.")

Sara the Sophisticated
Cellphone Photographer.

And finally, near trail's end, is the philosopher's
bench. To Roy's left was a view of open water,
an acre of water lilies, and geese and ducks
feeding or napping in the morning sun.
Happy trails, indeed.