Lone Tree Hill

This is town of Belmont Conservation Land, fomerly McLean Hospital land, now called Lone Tree Hill. McLean is a famous psychiatric hospital with a long history of treating famous creative people including Sylvia Plath, James Taylor, Ray Charles, David Foster Wallace and so on. They used to own a lot of land and at some point they sold a lot of it.

We crossed Route 60 on foot from the Star Market parking lot and hiked about a third of the way to Mill Street. This area is popular with mountain bikers, so the trail is marked with numbered signs, which is great for knowing exactly where you are on the map. Plenty of plants and crumbling stone walls to look at, and we saw a deer.

You know fall is upon us when Aster divaricatus lines the trails. Actually the taxonomy was changed and it is now Eurybia divaricata. An understated beauty! It looks really pretty interplanted with ferns.

Aster divaricatus

Green briar--Smilax rotundifolia

Maple leaf viburnum

This maple leaf viburnum was my favorite 'find' today, meaning a satisfying plant i.d. You think you're looking at a maple sapling, and then you notice the fruit. 

I'm trying to pay closer attention to tree bark to be able to identify trees at different stages of maturity (without leaves.) Here are three different white oak trunks, small, medium and large. 







Other trees we saw included hop hornbeam, white pine, hickory, sassafras, beech, and birch. 

Metropolitan Hospital

Today we almost did not go for a hike because we learned that our hiking buddy has a broken arm. Bummer!! Get well soon!

We pulled over just to do a little exploring from the site of the abandoned hospital, and it turned into a full fledged hike. We parked at the hospital and walked all the way to the water tower--the rusty one we saw from Mackerel Hill.

creepy abandoned hospital ♥

water tower

detail

You got that right, our favorite graffiti artist has been here :) I've gotta say its really fun to stumble upon a giant water tower in the middle of a hike. 

wayfinding

I left my maps at work, so we had to use our brains and our senses to orient us today. We talked a little bit about emergency preparedness and sketchy people. And landmarks. Always landmarks.

Mackerel Hill

We pulled over at Mackerel Hill today. Another place where kids can run free. This is on the Beaver Brook North Reservation map. We explored the hill, which has interesting ledge outcrops. We walked up the driveway towards a rusty water tower.

Found a couple of large autumn olive plants covered in fruit. This plant is invasive here in MA, but you can use the fruit to make home-made fruit rollups. I have never done it myself, but I tasted someone else's and they were good.

start your hike here

ledge on the hill

autumn olive, Elaeagnus umbellata

our local graffiti artist

chicory, Cichorium intybus

We took a trail down towards the old MetFern cemetery. Back then you were either buried Catholic or buried Protestant.

cemetery

wild plants

Our Lady/Shady's Pond Conservation Area

Another hike today, in stormy, hot and humid conditions. Left the Y at 4:15 or so, home by 6:00.

We parked at Our Lady's Academy, a Catholic school on Trapelo Road. They have a HUGE empty parking lot. A while back someone told me that the school had overpaved, infringing on city property or public land, so its ok to park there to do a hike. I stuck a Western Greenway map on my dashboard just in case anyone was wondering what we were doing there.

We already hiked the Chesterbrook Corridor from the Y north to Shady's Pond. So today we parked at Our Lady and walked south towards Shady's Pond. We also took a trail spur that led us to Waltham's Northeast Elementary School, another place you could park to do some hiking on the Western Greenway.

This particular area (below) she said felt like a museum model of nature. It did have the feeling of a room, I'll give her that.

Diorama

Note the golden fruit on false solomon's seal.
http://identifythatplant.com/false-and-true-solomons-seal/

Maianthemum racemosum

Are lichen more likely to grow on dead tree trunks than live tree trunks? They do like growing on rocks, which are not alive...

Fluorescent lichen

Falzone Park/Water Tower

Second attempt to find the water tower. We brought the map this time--I would never have seen that trail without the map!

The water tower looks like a giant alien spaceship landed there. This is in Lexington--she got a kick out of the fact that we walked from Waltham into Lexington.

Falzone Park

We started this hike at Falzone Park in Waltham. The park has been recently rebuilt with parking, soccer field, and trails. This is on the Middlesex Country Hospital Lands map.

We planned to walk to the water tower, which you can see from Trapelo Road. However, we left our map in the car, so after an hour of walking we still had not found the water tower. I guess we should bring the map next time, yeah? That was today’s lesson!

Drainage ditch stuffed with goldenrod, tansy, Verbena hastata (blue vervain), thistle, and I think boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum.)



Nice variety of landscapes throughout the trail system. We saw one dogwalker and mountain biker and otherwise had the place to ourselves.

Stonehurst

The Robert Treat Paine Estate, aka Stonehurst, is part of Storer Conservation Area.

Today we spent a lot of time just hangin’ out on the grounds of this spectacular mansion designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and H.H. Richardson. Open to the public year round, sunrise to sunset. Just there for the taking if you know about it and take the time to stop.

http://stonehurstwaltham.org/

This child adventured all around here, playing baseball with a stick, running laps around the big rock, imagining a parade with pine boughs, etc.

On the trails behind the house, we found pages of The Jungle Book posted along the trail, so you read as you walk in the forest. This was leftover from a Waltham library event in June.

The Jungle Book

And then the craziest thing, as we were leaving, we found that this impeccable model T ford had arrived. Look at the old wood spokes. We had just seen someone driving it around town a couple of days before, and here it was again…are you following us?

Model T

Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum) and...Dryopteris marginalis?

Chesterbrook Corridor

We hiked straight out of the Waltham YMCA along the Western Greenway Trail. This is called the Chesterbrook Corridor.

When you turn onto the long driveway at the Waltham Y, you cross a bridge over a swampy area. Right now the water is very low due to drought. But every August brings out huge clumps of pink Hibiscus flowers. We started our hike admiring those wildflowers and headed north towards Trapelo Road.

Hibiscus moschuetos

The trail goes through public and private land, and it is well marked. Boardwalks have been built over wetter areas. We saw at least 3 different types of ferns…hay scented fern, sensitive fern, and cinnamon fern. I’m trying to get better at fern i.d. this summer.

We found a cool boulder to climb, which, remarkably, did not have any poison ivy at the base.

We walked about a half mile in 30 minutes, towards Shady’s Pond Conservation Area. But the sun was going down, so that will be a hike for another day.

One of the things we're talking about is how to use landmarks to retrace your steps when you are in a new area. I let her read signs and lead when possible. One of her landmarks was ‘the sky’—she liked the way the trees made a window to the sky in one place—and another landmark was some candy wrappers on the ground. Will try to remember to bring a plastic bag to collect litter in the future.

Lyman Estate

This was an easy walk at the Lyman Estate in Waltham. We had a snack on a rock and observed rabbits, chipmunks and birds active at dusk.

Our friends Fred and Jenny got married there quite a few years ago. It was near Halloween and there were pumpkins in the centerpieces. Fun to reminisce about that day. The house was closed when we were there today, but a girl and her parents were peering in, maybe doing some wedding planning.

Lyman house

There is a long perennial bed outside the greenhouse, and it was alive with dazzling colors and buzzing insects.

Goldenrod and phlox

Plenty of old trees, some of which are good for climbing, if your mom will let you.

Old tulip tree

We did not go in the greenhouse today. A greenhouse can be a great winter outing. We went one time when Martha Anne was only 2 or 3 months old, in January or February. We used to marvel at the things she would focus on, even when she was just a tiny baby.