A Not So Ordinary Assabet

On Tuesday morning the air was still with a mist-laden fog enshrouding the Assabet River.  There were a few hours left before the much heralded arrival of what forecasters were calling record-breaking arctic cold conditions.  That provided me just enough time to get in one more paddle upriver from Ice House Landing in Maynard.

Where the river widens near Crow Island a parade of mute swans passed...

Turning my gaze to the right revealed I wasn't the only one watching them...

This particular eagle looked old for some reason...perhaps the deeper set eyes.

Beyond the island, in a slough, were pieces of solidified water...

...close to an abandoned bird's nest...

...both reminders of impending winter.

Near Whitman's Crossing the bobbing bottom of a glass bottle caught my eye and was shortly brought aboard...

It's embossed with "Dr. Hubbard's Vegetable Disinfectant, Deodorizer and Germicide, Boston, Mass".

On the bottle's base is O G R 8 which according to bottle folks online represents the glass bottle having been provided by O. Gordon Rankine also of Boston.  It holds 8 ounces.  Rankine provided such bottles between 1881 and 1900.  So, it leaves me to wonder why a bottle that's been around the river environment for perhaps a hundred years or so decided to go "float about" on Tuesday.  Maybe it decided that instead of being cold and wet it was now time to get warm and dry...and hang with fellow river bottles on a shelf in my house...

Proceeding further upriver I began to notice quite a stream of leaves which led me to a culvert-clearing project at the river's confluence with Fort Meadow Brook...

The culvert was nearly completely blocked with brush which had effectively turned the causeway into a holding dam.   DPW workers were using a small excavator to clear the culvert.  Perhaps the clearing project resulted in the bottle being dislodged from wherever it'd been residing all these years.

Around this time the predicted winds arrived and began ushering in the colder air, and I began heading back to my starting point.  

Smoke rising from a riverside home's chimney revealed a warming fire was stoked within...

  

I reached the appropriately named (for this day) "Ice House Landing" just as sleet began to mix in with the rain.  A small bit of trash gathered along the way...

Now that I'm back in my old Trashpaddler digs, figured I'd make a few changes in the decor starting with the wall coverings.