Winter at the Door

I preferred not to answer that door this past Tuesday and instead spent a few pleasant hours out on the Assabet River earlier this week during what comprised the "heat of the day"...temperatures on the plus side of freezing and a soft spoken wind.

Both the river and sky were blue while between them was a mostly brown and barren-looking landscape.  Any bits of color stood out starkly such as this once festive balloon...

It was 10 days before the official start of winter and 100 days before the official start of spring.  While I prefer to focus on the latter I can't help but wonder what the former holds in store.

When I stopped to stretch my legs at a wooded section on the river's west side I came across this solar farm...
...which was busy gathering-in the day's sunlight.  Just a short distance from this high-tech equipment was this low-tech stonework from long ago...

Further downriver this musquash took advantage of a thin platform of ice to increase his food stores...
 ...and impressed me with how singularly focused he was despite my being nearby.

Another musquash was seen with an odd appendage above his tail...
Hope for his sake it's not a leech.

A family of mute swans also took to the thin ice...

At the dam I stole a peek beyond the fall (so to speak)...
..at the energized water tumbling through the locale once known as Rock Bottom (Gleasondale).  It was my spot for turning about and heading back upriver.  Would have been the perfect moment to hear Tom Rush singing "Urge for Going" ... and yes I did indeed later check on how many miles it is to Florida and what bus/train routes there are to the same.

Still here two days later, I paddled up to Rock Bottom to a point below the above pictured dam and looked up to the waterfall beyond the old foot bridge...
Long ago mill workers crossed this bridge daily in answering the mill's bell calling them to work.

Took a short detour through the box-culvert and into Fort Meadow Brook up to the abandoned railroad trestle...

This belted-kingfisher enjoyed the same view...

At Magazu's Landing (Sudbury Rd.) the shed, formerly housing USGS monitoring equipment, was gone...

Continued down to Crow Island mostly curious to see if that wide, shallow section was iced-over....it wasn't and a mature bald eagle majestically graced the island's tallest spire...

The sighting provided a fitting end to my day on the river.


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