Thursday, January 16, 2025

Winter's Tightening Grip

 


As the ice on rivers and streams gets thicker with each passing day any hopes for getting out on the water anytime soon is fading.  Fort Pond Brook in Concord, MA is pictured above.  Best I can hope for these days is hiking along a streamside trail...

Reached one such trail today via this abandoned bridge at the Acton/Concord town line...

The beaver dam just upstream from  the bridge as it looked from my boat 4 weeks ago...
...compared with how it looked today from atop the bridge...
 

Olm Man Winter is in full control now and I'm left with no choice but to salute the change-of-state power he holds upon water.  My only comfort comes in knowing that meteorological spring is only 43 days away. 
 
This tree shows how one can bend without breaking...

 
 Some plastic containers encountered along the trail this week...






Thursday, January 2, 2025

Last of One, First of Another

 Fairly mild weather allowed one unexpected last paddle on the final Sunday of 2024...

...where fog enveloped me for most of my time on the water...
Paddled bits of the Concord and Assabet rivers between Spencer Brook and Great Meadows.


Yesterday I celebrated the arrival of 2025 by paddling the Sudbury River between Egg Rock and Fairhaven Bay...
...where the bay had a thin layer of ice which isolated Brooke Island.  The ice was barely thick enough to support this little fellow...

One unusual occurrence happened just after picking up the year's first "nip" bottle...
 ...I faced going to either the right or left of a large boulder.  I chose to go left and shortly after doing so heard a very loud crack and splash.  Turned about to see a dead tree had just fallen to the right of said boulder...
Glad I chose the left side but the incident left me wondering what kind of omen this might be for the new year.

Not far from the "nip" bottle was its alter ego...

 Another new type of container showed up...

The last trash haul of 2024...

The first trash haul of 2025...

Water levels yesterday had risen a half a foot or so higher than they were on Sunday leaving only a small amount of submerged ice at Egg Rock's stone inscription...