An Almost Replenished Assabet

On Tuesday I found the Assabet River replenished enough to allow my boat and me passage between Spencer Brook and Damon Mill.  My trip was made easier thanks to somebody's fairly recent chain-saw work in the Westvale area.  After working my way against the Assabet's current I pulled into the Damon Mill's outlet canal where I got this view of the Col. Roger Brown house amidst some fall foliage...

The building dates to the early 1700s and it is said that Concord Minuteman Roger Brown was doing carpentry work on the house on the morning of April 19th, 1775 when he got the news that British troops were on their way to Concord.

It was good to, once again, see the Assabet River with more water than rocks and sand bars...

...especially in the area of Concord Junction where this MBTA locomotive pushed its inbound commuter train across the river.

On Sunday, I paddled the lower Assabet between Spencer Brook and Egg Rock.  Upon reaching the confluence I continued down the Concord River to Saw Mill Brook passing along the way the spot where Roger Brown and the other Minutemen encountered the British troops at Concord's Old North Bridge...

The Assabet offered an assortment of wild things including this red-tailed hawk...

...these mushrooms gradually becoming submerged...

...and this late blooming wildflower...

...that looked like a relative of a Cardinal flower.

Sandwiched between those paddles was a visit to the Bill Ashe boat launch on the Nashua River (Oxbow NWR) in Devens, MA where I slid into the river from the launching pad...

Headed downriver...

...to the Ice House Dam where water is flowing over the dam again...

Between the dam and a point upriver above Route 2 this stretch of the Nashua produced its usual batch of plastic trash including 29 nip bottles...

One odd find in the Nashua was a 20 liter dry bag that had been in the river for quite awhile based on the amount of river staining on it.  When cleaned up later it was revealed to have a built-in solar panel which once powered a set of light bulbs and could also recharge a electronic device through a USB terminal...

While I doubt the solar panel will generate electricity again, the bag itself will soon see service as a trash receptacle.

 Tuesday's trash from the Assabet...

Sunday's from the lower Assabet and upper Concord...