Garlic Mustard, Cleared Trails and Kayaks

A good day on and around the hill isn't always about stargazing. Saturday April 18 proved to be an interesting day in and around Cummington despite a heavy overcast and occasional drizzle. For me the day started by attending a fascinating "Invasive Plant Species" seminar at the Cummington Community Center. In Massachusetts non-native invasive plants like Garlic Mustard, Oriental bittersweet, and Japanese barberry crowd native species and cause subtle ecological changes that can poison butterflies, inhibit the growth of oak and sugar maples, and even lead to the spread of Lyme disease.

After the seminar I headed up to the hill, and immediately used my new booklet "A Guide to Invasive Plants in Massachusetts" to identify the invasive herb Coltsfoot growing along our roadway, basically from near the stream most of the way up to the road. We'll try to get a handle on this before it extends up to the clearing.

Once I got to the top of the hill I realized someone had been pretty busy clearing out the ice storm damage on some of our trails. Not surprisingly, I followed the trails and found the steadfast Hadley troop lead by Joe Zuraw, Bruce Blanchard, and Scott Massey. Also clearing trails on another part of the hill were the Windsor, MA troop lead by Gleen Benscoter. Thanks to all for their hard work. It will take many more weekends to open up all of our trails and clean up the remnants of the December ice storm.

I drove home down Rt 112 S to Rt 20 and was treated to a parade of canoes and kayaks in the Westfield Whitewater River Novice Race. I pulled off at "Turtle Bend", one of the more technically challenging spots in the novice race, despite the lack of lots of rapids. The river makes a sharp turn at turtle bend where the river runs up against Tekoa Moutain. The more experienced paddlers gain speed in the current, but novices get washed ashore or get dumped on the one big rock in the path.

The race brought back some painful memories of my near diasaster while practicing for the 1973 novice race. Let's just say I learned a lot about life, whitewater paddling and trying to swim in 33 degree water that day.

-Ed