A fine start:
The trip began early in the day in western Massachusetts. With prior permission,
I drove onto a property that was privately owned by a religious organization.
Behind the main buildings on the property was a large parcel of
mostly unmodified land, crowned by an interesting 20 acre fen. This fen is managed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
Bound on all sides by developed properties, the fen is a challenging site to manage, but TNC
had been doing an excellent job.
This photograph, taken from a grassy hillside by my parked car, shows the fen in the background. The rectangular body of water
in the foreground is a fire pond that is also a convenient boat put-in site.
My TNC guides showed up with canoes. We prepared the canoes, gathered our gear,
and paddled along the narrow access-way you can see connecting the fire pond to the fen.
For your added interest, here is a view of the
diverse vegetation on the banks of the fen.
