Fall light

17 Nov, 2011 Author: Paul and Linda Williams

photo by Paul Williams

Paul and Linda Williams submitted this image looking upstream from the main sluiceway in the late afternoon of November 11, 2011.  They write: "My spouse Linda and I, frequent bog walkers, have come to appreciate the simple beauty of the new habitat — the meandering brook, the colorful grasses that have filled in over the pond bottom, the mix of sky, water and vegetation. As we stood at the dam, the single swan was farther upstream. As we watched it, the swan swam slowly downstream to watch us watching it. For the technically inclined, the image was shot with an iPhone 4 using the Top Camera app, which was also used to adjust the image."   -- Paul and Linda Williams

Thank you to a neighbor

10 Nov, 2011 Author: Glorianna Davenport

The litter clean up daysestablished by the Network of Open Space Friends and supported by the Town of Plymouth has become a tradition. The unsightly litter that accumulates over the course of 6 months along almost every roadside is a sad testament to human carelessness and the participatory clean up effort by a wide range of citizens is truly inspiring. Today we send special thanks to a neighbor who spent time on November 5 cleaning up the trash that had accumulated along our Bartlett Road frontage.  We would also like to thank several neighbors who pulled almost 1000 Buddleja bushes from the South West corner of the property where they had found a dandy spot to germinate en mass.  An imported european species, this infestation looked out of place.  You can find images for Buddleja at Salicicola.com a website developed by Irina Kadis and Alexey Zinovejev, botanists who are developing a species list for Tidmarsh Farms.

http://salicicola.com/photos/gallery/view/1403/7045/20060819$canon029s.

Early Fall

13 Oct, 2011 Author: Glorianna Davenport

The first weeks of fall are always busy times at Tidmarsh, this year the more so with the confluence of harvest, the launch of the engineering-design phase of our restoration project and ever expanding activities related to the Living Observatory. In our microclimate, the cool nights give rise to morning fog on the river, and as the water rises floating fields of red cranberries are first boomed then corralled and trucked to Ocean Spray.

Prior to a hard frost, the eastern bogs that are waiting restoration sport a richly textured mix of native grasses, native asters, goldenrod, late stage milkweed pods and many more species that only our plant ecologists, Irina Kadis and Alexey Zinovjev dare to name. Going out in the field with these two is a joyful learning experience. Despite their extensive knowledge of native species, they admit they are still learning. As we walk, they stop frequently to discuss a particular plant, for Alexey to take a picture and GPS code, and to gather and add specimens to their bag. In the process, Irina will often check the species in in the handbook “Native species of The Vascular Plants of Massachusetts: A County Checklist, Original version. We are thilled that one can now acquire the The Vascular Plants of Massachusetts: A County Checklist, First Revision (2011) by Melissa Dow Cullina, Bryan Connolly, Bruce Sorrie and Paul Somers.

(http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/nhesp/publications/nhesp_pubs.htm)