A Taste of the Taunton's Tea

With an afternoon job to the south on my schedule I decided to head in that direction early and visit a new confluence (photo at left) before work.  I launched at the appropriately named Summer Street in Bridgewater and paddled the tea-colored water of the Taunton River downstream.  Some 40 miles of the Taunton River are classified as Wild and Scenic.
After passing under a railroad bridge and some high tension power lines I reached the area of the confluence.  An osprey enjoyed a commanding view of the whole area from its nest atop a high tension tower...

As I entered the river that flows into the Taunton here, I was fairly sure of the river's name.  However, at the first bend I saw the bottom of a glass bottle emerging from the muddy bank.  Pulling it out of the mud and rinsing it off provided confirmation that I was, indeed, in the Nemasket River...

What's weird is that the red color and arrow image completely disappeared by the time I got home.  The remaining white lettering states "Bottled only at the spring by the Nemasket Spring Water Co.  Middleboro, Mass."  The spring was located several miles upriver.  Glad I took the photo when I did.

The Nemasket flows clear and shallow and this little river is said to have the largest alewife run on the eastern seaboard (according to Wikipedia).

After seeing just a bit of the Nemasket, I returned to the Taunton and headed upriver to about a mile above Summer Street.  It was just me and a few old turtles...

There wasn't too much trash to be found in the river.  In fact, about half of this trash haul came from the launch area at Summer Street...

There were 21 recyclable containers (5 redeemable) and 21 pieces of miscellaneous rubbish.
YTD = 3045