Friday, December 14, 2012

Musketaquid's Musquash Paradise

Yes, lucky indeed is the musquash (aka muskrat) family that will wile away the winter inside this well built Musketaquid abode (photo at left).  The Native American word "Musketaquid" is said to mean "grass-grown river" and nowhere is this description more accurate than the section of the Sudbury River between Route 27 and Sherman's Bridge Road in Wayland, MA.  For the nearly three miles between these two bridges, the river passes through the center of a large marsh-like area with nearly a half mile of grass on either side. 
Paddling this stretch today was like being in another realm where there is only sky, grass, and water...
For a musquash, it probably can't get any better than this.

I launched at Sherman's Bridge and headed upriver into the wind and against the current knowing they'd be at my back for the return trip.
After reaching the dirt ramp at River Road, I began my trip downriver with the late afternoon sun illuminating the underside of the Rt. 27 bridge...
Large numbers of mallards were about and they seemed more skittish than usual.

This blue heron may be pushing the envelope a bit by not having flown south earlier...
The ice is very close to his legs.

Back at Sherman's Bridge the daylight was fast fading...

My modest trash haul gathered hullside...
There were 17 recyclable containers (6 redeemable) and 10 pieces of miscellaneous rubbish such as a bicycle tire and tube.  Most of the trash was near the old causeway below Rt. 27.

Once back home, I found that Mrs. Trashpaddler had returned from an afternoon walk in which she recovered this haul...
She had scooped up 17 recyclable containers (1 redeemable) and 9 pieces of miscellaneous rubbish.

The two similar sized hauls bring the YTD total to 6757.

All the plastic containers brought to mind an uplifting editorial that appeared in the Boston Globe on 12/12/12 entitled "Kicking the Bottle-Water Habit".   According to the piece, "On Jan. 1, the University of Vermont will become the nation's biggest public university to ban sales of bottled water..."   By enacting this ban, students are turning down sizable monetary offers from a bottled water provider willing to pay for "pouring rights".  The true conviction of the students impresses me.



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