Packed snow on the trail

February 18, 2017 / Ellen Kolb

My winter walks so far have almost all been on pavement, even though we’ve had plenty of snowfall. It was time to find a local trail and maybe give the snowshoes a workout. I headed for Horse Hill close to home.

It had been a few days since the last snowfall, so the Loop Trail was packed down. No snowshoes needed, although spikes were handy. The weather’s brought some thaw/refreeze cycles, leaving icy spots here and there. (I’m using a new set of StabilicersLite that I picked up at my local L.L. Bean outlet, having finally worn out my old YakTrax.)

A quiet walk in the woods was perfect at the end of a day spent in front of a laptop screen. Pavement wouldn’t have been nearly as refreshing.

Temps reaching 40° left a kiosk’s snowcap drooping at a rakish angle.

A tree looked freshly girdled, probably by one of the beavers from the nearby pond. The tree beside it bore a few fresh marks, as though a beaver had sampled it and thought “nah…I like the other one better.”

Mine Falls treat: beaver sighting

April 23, 2014May 23, 2014 / Ellen Kolb

Beaver seeking privacy from a nosy photographer.

Mine Falls Park in Nashua is a watery place, with the Nashua River and an old mill canal and millpond. It teems with life. I can count on seeing a variety of birds in all seasons. In the summer, eastern painted turtles sun themselves on broken tree branches partially submerged in the canal. Muskrats are common. A far rarer sight: beavers. They’re around, all right – just look at the evidence they leave behind in gnawed trees. Actually seeing one of the critters, though, is unusual. Early one evening this week, I hit the jackpot.

No, this isn’t the Loch Ness monster’s little cousin. It really is a beaver, as best as can be captured with my not-quite-top-shelf cell phone camera. I was lucky: as I scooted along a trail by the mill pond, I heard a sudden splash very close by. I had startled something. I looked over to the pond, saw ripples, and watched. Sure enough, up popped the beaver a few feet away. It swam away at a leisurely pace as I fumbled for my phone and snapped the picture.

I was at the park for the first brisk walk I’ve had in weeks. I walked what I call the full loop, a little less than five miles long, touching the park’s eastern and western ends. I saw the pair of swans that have nested in the cove for several years now, and it looks like they’ve found a new spot for their nest, a little more protected from gawkers like me. A few trees have been downed by spring winds, and for once none fell across a main trail. The peepers – frogs that sound like sleigh bells for just a few weeks each spring – were just tuning up as I passed a pond. Everything added up to a wonderful hour and a quarter. But the star of today’s show: an oversized rodent that refused to pose for me. A treat indeed.