Newsletters
July 2009 - Explore Your Natural Environment
WELCOME TO GREEN FUTURES!
JULY, 2009
“Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that means half of them are even stupider.”
-George Carlin
“Open space can no longer be considered a given …it must be planned for as a basic infrastructure need as essential as roads, sewers, and schools.”
-Helen C. Fenske
EXPLORE YOUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT –
Summer winding down and fall approaching presents the ideal time, here in New England, to get outdoors and explore your local natural environment.
Although we lack mountains along the Atlantic coastal plain, we do have a wide range of other natural features from sandy ocean beaches to thickly forested swamps and bogs. Can you identify such common geological features as eskers, drumlins, glacial erratics, kettleholes, outwash, moraines and more? Stuff a New England geological field guide in your pack, take a hike across an area landscape, and see how the earth was formed in your neck of the woods. The coming season awaits your inspection on innumerable levels. What can you find? What can you learn?
From the multi-thousand acre Myles Standish State Forest in neighboring Plymouth County and the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (map at www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/habitat/maps/wma/southeastwma/se_bioreserve.pdf ) in our backyard …all the way down to the less than an acre neighborhood vacant lot …there’s lots to see and ponder as you roam.
Need more direction? Lace up your hiking shoes and check these out. Some of the larger open space land holding organizations and agencies in our area are, The Trustees of Reservations (www.thetrustees.org) , Wildlands Trust (www.wildlandstrust.org) , Massachusetts Audubon (www.massaudubon.org) , Dartmouth Natural Resources Trust (www.dnrt.org) , Tiverton Land Trust (www.tivertonlandtrust.org) , Audubon Society of Rhode Island (www.asri.org) , Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (www.mass.gov/dcr) , Massachusetts Division of Fish and Wildlife (www.ma.gov/wildlife) , Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (www.dem.ri.gov) . If your budget allows, consider joining one or more of the above organizations. Great way to meet like-minded people who realize the importance of open space preservation and a clean, healthy environment.
While exploring your “newly discovered” natural areas take note not only of the natural history, but also the human history. You’ll need more than a field guide for this, but the local historical society or association should be able to give you answers to some of your questions.
With that in mind, let’s walk a trail along Rattlesnake Brook in the Bioreserve. Who built the stonewalls we see, here and there, way out in these woods? Were these granite walls constructed by one family or many? One generation or more? What year(s)? Why …to keep livestock in or to keep livestock out …or to clear the land for planting? As property boundary markers? See those old cellar holes? Were the folks who once lived here farmers, shepherds, charcoal makers …or all of the above?
Notice the old lilac bush, not a New England native, blooming by the cellar hole next to where the front door was probably located? Did the farmer that once tried to wrest a living from this rocky soil plant this lilac for his wife? Note too the old broken-down apple trees, overtopped by the returning native forest, that continue to bear tiny, wormy apples now only enjoyed by deer and other woodland critters.
And how did Rattlesnake Brook get its name? Was it because of the brooks sinuous course? None now, but did rattlesnakes once live along Rattlesnake Brook? Since rattlesnake habitat usually consists of ledges and rocky slopes, would rattlesnakes have been found in that area of wetlands, springs and brooks? Was it even named for that charismatic reptile …or for the rattlesnake plantain that grows along its banks?
How about Labor in Vain Brook in Somerset? What/whose “labor” and why was it in “vain” …and are we talking about human labor or the “labor” of the seemingly random brook channel coursing through the landscape?
Bread and Cheese Brook in Westport; Queen Gutter Brook, Fall River; Sin and Flesh Brook in Tiverton all stir the imagination. All have a story to tell.
Did someone actually break their neck on Break Neck Hill in the Assonet section of the Bioreserve? Who was the dead man of Dead Man’s Trail?
More to consider on your outdoor rambles. The first residents of southeastern Massachusetts, the native Wampanoag …”People of the East” …so-named by the neighboring Narragansett …left us hundreds of interesting place names. Unfortunately the Wampanoag did not have a written language and their decimation was so complete after European colonization, that questions continue on the correct pronunciation and meaning of many of their place names.
Here are some you may encounter in your explorations: Montaup (which the English changed to Mount Hope), Seekonk, Sapowet, Sakonnet, Sachuest, Acushnet, Assonet, Titticut, Mattapoisett, Watuppa, Copicut, Paskamansett, Snipatuit, Assawompset, Quittacas, Quequechan, Sowams, etc., etc. Interesting stuff to think about as one explores local areas.
Enough of this, I’m going exploring right now. I think I’ll head over to Weetamoo Woods in Tiverton, roam about my natural environment, check on the progress of the seasons.
ACTION AND INFO ALERTS –
Watch your email for “ALERTS” on important area environmental issues. Thanks to all that email, phone or write when requested. It does make a difference.
Check out our
for upcoming events. Autumn is waiting in the wings.
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