The Assabet River's Trash Hatchery

This morning I visited a section of the Assabet River where trash is always in plentiful supply.  In fact, I think it's where one might say trash is "hatched".  An early start had me on the water at the Cox Street bridge in Hudson, MA at 6:30 am, and my goal was to get downstream past the shooting range before the daily gunfight erupted.  The picture at left shows me past that point and just beginning to follow the river's meander around Orchard Hill.
I already had a good amount of trash when I came upon this gang's hangout...

Twenty minutes later it looked a little better...

Once past this point the amount of trash encounterd lightened quite a bit, and before I knew it I'd reached the end of the line at the Gleasondale Dam...

 

 

For the first time I noticed the water flowing into the mill's raceway at the right side of the dam...

 

 

There was no way to fit through that opening, and since no portage options are readily visible here it was time to turn around and begin the trip back to Cox Street.

 

Many flowers were in bloom but I thought these guys looked the scrappiest...

 

Near the pump house for the golf course was this roadway construction barrel...

Unfortunately, there wasn't room for it today.

 

Back at Cox Street my traveling companions posed high and dry...

There were 60 recyclable containers (11 redeemable) and 71 pieces of miscellaneous rubbish such as a large plastic storage container's lid, a 4 foot fluorescent lightbulb, nip bottles, styrofoam, plastic bags, etc.  YTD = 4855

 

Oddly, no gunshots were heard this morning!