Sunday, November 13 was unusually warm, perhaps the last warm day of the year, and something inside me told me to take a walk that day and to go here. I took my new digital camera with me and set out on foot.
This is Ty, my 1992 Solectria Force, as seen from the front steps of my house as I begin my walk. My path will take me to the intersection in the background, where I will turn right and walk about a mile.
The former New York and New England (afterwards New York, New Haven, and Hartford) Woonsocket Division is largely disused and has been abandoned west of Medfield. Once upon a time it carried passengers between New York and Boston via Hartford. I cross it five minutes into my walk.
After a mile of town streets, I follow the Sudbury River Aqueduct, built by the Boston Water Works in the late nineteenth century to supply water to the city. I believe it is still in use.
Shortly afterward, I cross into the town of Wellesley near this house, built on an oddly shaped parcel of land between the aqueduct and Hunnewell Street.
Eventually I come to an old pumphouse. It probably doesn't contain any pumps, though, as there are no power lines leading to it.
Here's a closer view of the pumphouse. Its style of construction suggests it was built in the late nineteenth century.
The pumphouse was locked, but I took this picture through one of its narrow windows. It looks like a portal to the underworld. They say there's another one in Cleveland.
The aqueduct continues westward, but I will turn off off to the right onto a path into the woods at the bottom of the hill. In the distance, a bridge carries the aqueduct over Rosemary Brook, itself a source of drinking water for the Town of Wellesley.
This is Rosemary Brook where the aqueduct crosses it. The pond in the background is a town reservoir. Just beyond it, out of view, lies Volante Farms, the last operating farm in the Town of Needham.
This is another shot of Rosemary Brook as it meanders through the woods toward Longfellow Pond.
Here Rosemary Brook feeds Longfellow Pond. The pond is formed by a dam just south of Route 9. On the other side of the dam the brook crosses under the highway and eventually finds its way to the Charles River.
These ducks are mallards (Anas platyrynchos). They have largely driven out the formerly dominant American black duck (A. rubripes) in the past fifty years. Nevertheless, I saw some black ducks at the pond a few months ago.
My walk took me all the way around the pond. This late in the year there are no frogs in evidence, but both the green frog (Rana clamitans melanota) and bullfrog (R. catesbeiana) live here. There are also painted turtles (Chrysemys picta), but I did not see any today.
"The Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began..."
"Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can..."
"Pursuing it with weary feet, until it joins some larger way, where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say."