Labor of love

[jere7my]

For Labor Day, I convinced adfamiliares to stop working for a few hours and visit Concord with me. We walked the Dike Trail at Great Meadows, and I'd barely set my foot on it when I heard a major rustling in the dry reeds beside me. There at my feet was a fat black northern water snake, a good three feet long! This was easily the largest snake I'd ever seen in the wild, outside of Malaysia.

After that, we spotted great blue herons (seen above, hunting), egrets, a handful of leopard frogs, bunches of painted turtles, a red-tailed hawk, a second water snake, and a Dan Wells. Yes! We hadn't seen him since graduating Swarthmore, but there he was, on a wildlife expedition with his parents. He seems to be well — eco-teaching at the University of Vermont, and designing nature apps for the iPhone on the side. We had a very nice talk on our way back to the cars.

Northern water snake #1


Painted turtle


Northern leopard frog


Trees flooded by the Concord River


This mushroom was a delicate shade of lavender


K. with Dan and family

K. and I then stopped at the Old North Bridge, and visited the free open house at the Old Manse (home to both Hawthorne and Emerson) to see the mad stuffed owl, the squared piano, and the migraine-painted kitchen walls. Concord is full of Ye Olde Houses, which entice K. more than Ye Olde Snakes & Frogges, and she expressed an intention to return in a more historical state of mind.

The day before, I'd spent the afternoon at the HMNH, paying closer attention to tags (which hold a wealth of historical information) than I usually do. I found beetles that had been mounted in the 19th century rubbing tarsi with beetles from 2009, and in the Great Mammal Hall searched for the specimen with the lowest (and therefore earliest?) catalog number. The lowest I found was MCZ #92, which I believe was a beaver. Some North American mammal, anyway.