Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend. 8-31-2018

Labor Day weekend! Long weekend! Plus, we both got out early(ish) on Friday afternoon. I wanted to rest but I really wanted to get to a nearby spot in Norfolk County. This is the spot that has been recovering from near total destruction a couple of years ago, written about in detail here. Anyway, nature had been fighting back and recovery had been evident, though we still haven't seen a Racer of fossorial snake there in the last two years.

Our goal, as it usually is this time of year, was baby turtles. One time, we found 17 Snaplings on the Alley, the trail alongside the train tracks. We hit the trails in the late afternoon and it was cool and beautiful out. This perfect Garter Snake greeted us to the woods.


The sandy pit that is used for boy-men to ride their shitty little bikes around was next, American Toads have learned how to use plywood ramps for cover , mostly without getting squished.

This guy was low low low to the ground.


There was one toad who was hurting, though. He had no back legs. They were healing nicely but I can't imagine that a toad that can't hop is going to do very well out there. Bike squish? Garter grab? Hard to say. We both considered taking him home to make his last days as comfortable as possible but figured that jostling him around during the mile walk back to the car would be cruel. We left him, hoping that he didn't suffer too much.

We were excited as we neared the "alley". Maybe this would be the day we see some hatchling turtles and the return of Racers!

Well, no. Because the world is for humans, habitat destruction and the decimation of all that is natural is the way we do things. Even a place that is touted as the "largest freshwater marsh on the middle Charles River" doesn't stand a chance against the machinery and destruction of progress.


Much of the freshwater marsh has been ripped up to place these heavy machinery planks. The entire path and beyond is crushed by these monoliths right down to the river. In the season of baby turtles and baby snakes, this doubles the heartbreak I felt as we carried on, walking to the end to see how far the tragedy went. We heard no birds until we reached the river, about a mile from the start of the planks.

I didn't cry, as I did back in May 2016, but came close. The anger I felt (and feel) was all consuming. Fuck you, Eversource (the company listed on a sign), fuck you Massachusetts. Mostly, fuck you... fuck us... humanity. A once beautiful and thriving place is basically a parking lot now. Down at the river, in a tree on the opposite shore, even this Osprey was facing the other way.


My heart is broken. Two of our favorite spots have been removed from our rotation this year. Massasoit, which has become a nightmare of human campers and habitat destruction and now Cutler Park. We didn't give up on it two years ago but now, what's the point. We'd had some very happy moments along this stretch, had seen more than a dozen species of reptiles and amphibians and now it is gone. Nothing but memories left. And the anger.