Sunday morning in Boston

I passed the three hours this morning that Hamilton was in church on Wetmore Road, where there is almost nothing, and Bath Road, where there is a heron rookery in the sycamore trees along the river.

I don't see many bicycles on Wetmore, but the road super has them on notice at every border.

All the land here is owned by the National Park.

I've mentioned, ninety two percent of Boston is owned by folks who don't pay real estate taxes for its upkeep. Real estate taxes are the only taxes a township is permitted to collect.

We collect ten thousand dollars a year for road maintenance from the remaining three hundred properties, to take care of roads that have two million national visitors.

Pachysandra. Someone probably lived here.

Pachysandra and anemone. Someone surely lived here.

There are only two houses left, and the park owns both.

One is a life estate lease to the owner,

The other is the old Black Farm.

It was a large horse farm. The local equestrians wish the park would do something with it. I know they would lease it to someone who could raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars for restoration.

Your tax dollars at work.

Some of us hear the tree.

I wonder if a pileaeted woodpecker is around. I've seen them in other areas.

This tree makes me smile. A loud razzberry from this direction. From the other, I call him Willie Weasel.

Down to Bath Road, the bridge over the river. Another tree with a history.

I wonder if this is dock. It's in the river lowlands.

About two thirds of one sycamore tree with active nests. The babies are hatched, and vociferous. The parents are coming and going, bringing fish up from the river below. I tried for a picture of one in flight, but no luck.

Here's one.

Here's another that has just settled and carefully drawn his wings through the branches and against his body. They are enormous birds; their grace and agility is hard to believe.

And almost home, a shower at the Moose Club. I defied about fifty bikers turning into the drive to take this picture.