March 29, 2024

Enjoying Spring with More Nature Walks

Rehoboth Ramblings

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A big thank-you to the Keep Rehoboth Beautiful folks for their recent town-wide cleanup campaign. Let’s take the time to appreciate our litter-free streets (if it’s not too late already), before they are trashed again by thoughtless slobs who throw their rubbish out car windows. Why it is so difficult to hang on to food wrappers, and cans and bottles (mostly beer) until you get to a trash can? The obvious answer is that some people just don’t care. Also, it’s disturbing to think of people driving around our roads while drinking. But anyway, picking up litter is something of a hobby for me. I encourage more walkers to take it up.

Exploring a number of nature trails in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island has been one of our few forms of entertainment this past year. But I’ve gotten a little bored with just winding my way up or down forest paths. I really prefer to walk where the land borders water, whether ocean or bay, river or stream, lake or pond. Good thing there’s a lot to choose from in this area.

Sachuest Point in Middletown, operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is well worth a visit, but maybe not on a pleasant Saturday or Sunday, because you won’t find a parking spot. This popular preserve has walking trails with ocean views but note that no dogs are allowed here. When we were there in late winter, it was a real pick-me-up to round a corner and see the sun sparkling on the waves. There’s just something about being near the sea even, or maybe especially, in the off season.

One unusually warm Sunday last November, we discovered Sachuest Beach (Second Beach) in Middletown on the way to the nature preserve. There was lots of off-season parking there that day. I assume it is very different in summer (you need to buy a permit for one thing) but going for a walk on this beautiful beach on a warm autumn day was another unexpected treat. The Norman Bird Sanctuary nearby is also a good place for a nature walk, though this private nature preserve has a small entrance fee. This trail winds uphill and it too offers great sea views.

I’ve been enjoying a new column by John Kostrzewa in the Providence Journal called Walking Rhode Island. This is in keeping with the Journal’s apparent policy of regarding any place outside the Ocean State as terra incognita, since the writer features walking trails in Rhode Island only. (As I like to say, Seekonk is a heck of a lot closer in many ways to Providence than Westerly is.)

In one recent column he mentioned Osamequin Nature Preserve in Barrington, on Rt. 114 North (Wampanoag Trail) which we recently discovered. (Osamequin was the given name of Massasoit, which was a name that meant something like chief.) This picturesque but small area is easy to get to and a good place to see shore birds. You can’t actually “hike” here; the trails are too short, all leading down to the Barrington River’s Hundred Acre Cove. You can bring your dog but I wouldn’t advise it. After a short visit last fall, we found almost two dozen ticks on our dog Lucy, though none on us. We had never found so many ticks in one location on our various rambles.

When in doubt, we always head to Bristol, whether the short trail and boardwalk to the bay at the Audubon Nature Center or our favorite old standby, Colt State Park. Blithewold’s daffodils have been exceptionally brilliant and long-lasting this year. In fact, all the spring flowers seem to be so much more vivid this year. Could it be that we were all so worried and preoccupied this time last year that I didn’t even appreciate my favorite spring flowers?

But this spring, what a difference it makes having a vaccine. Even though the rollout of the vaccine appointments last winter was a bit rocky, supply is catching up to demand and it is already making a big difference in our state’s statistics, not to mention individual morale. After a year’s worth of anxiety and frustration, it is like having that dark cloud over one’s head finally gone. Let’s hear it for all the medical and public health professionals, research scientists, and volunteers for last year’s clinical trials who made this modern miracle possible. Thank you!

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