This Will Not Stand

 Visit #1605, Saturday 20 June 26, 8:45-11:35 a.m., 4.4 miles, 7.0 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the 70s, gloriously sunny, dry, breezy, with puffy clouds.

On Tuesday evening I rode my mountain bike to Hubbard Park to cover some graffiti I found at the Halfway House during last week's hike. Next time I need to use more painter's tape.

On that same bike ride, as I entered the trails at the south end of Merimere Reservoir, I encountered a couple people fishing AND a family of six SWIMMING in the reservoir.

This fellow had just landed a nice sized bass.

The family came out of the water to check out the bass our fisherman had just caught and left their belongings.

On Thursday I again rode to Hubbard Park to apply weed killer to various spots.

After applying weed killer to this stalk,  I stepped back to take a photo of it. As I looked down to my right while walking backwards, I spied a copperhead no more than a foot away slithering into the rocks at the base of the foundation. Good thing I was looking where I was going!

And I saw yet more people swimming in the reservoir on Thursday.

But the illegal fishing was not a one-off thing either. During Saturday's hike, I found these two gents fishing in the same spot as the other fellow on Tuesday.

The fellow above and I had a terse exchange when I pointed out no fishing was allowed in the reservoir. He didn't seem to have a problem with fishing there. Another hiker told me these two had camped out overnight in the park, and told me where their tents were, but I could not locate them.

My real goal on Saturday was at Castle Craig. A birch tree on the island of grass had fallen well over a year ago and just looked unsightly to me. 

The other two branches are probably dying as well but I'm not touching them until they fall.

I cut the fallen tree into manageable pieces and leveled off the two stumps.

Loaded everything into my truck, shuttled it a couple hundred yards, and tossed it into the woods.

And while I was up at Castle Craig and before the crowds arrived, I decided to clean up the area so it would look good for Saturday.

What prompted my decision was seeing this abandoned stroller, which I took and disposed of as well.

Earlier this month I mentioned my work with Japanese Knotweed and how I noticed some stands of it growing in Hubbard Park.

During Tuesday's ride to the park as I picked up Reservoir Avenue from the Chamberlain Highway, I noticed a stand of knotweed that had apparently been treated with weedkiller.

And during Saturday's hike I noticed, and I'm assuming this; the water department (versus the parks department) aggressively went after the knotweed at one of the locations, by the retention ponds. Looks like they used a combination of cutting and weed killer, based on the color of what's left. Compare that to the Before photo. Was it coincidence, or does the Meriden Water Department follow my blog?! 😊