Norwottuck Rail Trail

It was a beautiful, warm, bright day with blue skies and puffy white clouds. I didn't want to just go home after work so I decided to go visit the Norwottuck Rail Trail in Hadley, Mass again. I went there in April and wrote about it in one of my first blogs. I was looking forward to seeing the trail in its summer bloom.

I started out behind the Mountain Farms Mall again, but this time I went to the right. I walked for awhile but all I was really seeing was a bike path and green, green, green. I did get a nice shot of the Holyoke Mountain Range through the trees but I was pretty much underwhelmed by the whole thing.

I kept going, determined to find something spectacular to take a picture of. I eventually came to the Rt. 9 crossing. It is an interesting little tunnel and stone bridge but not really the kind of pictures I was looking for. I needed a change of plans, or at least I needed to change what I was looking at.

I headed back the way I came and sat on a patch of mowed grass for awhile, waiting for inspiration, when I noticed these pretty little daisies growing in the shrubbery. Ok, that was a nice picture. I started walking wondering what other things were growing in the thicket next to the bike path.

I found a nice patch of Sensitive Ferns.

I also found some Honeysuckle berries. I believe this is the Morrow Honeysuckle which is considered an invasive species. While hummingbirds do like the flowers, the berries are low in protein and fat so they are not a good food source for animals.

Next I found some Whorled Loosestrife. This is a native species and not related to Purple Loosestrife which is an invasive species. After the Boston Tea Party colonial women started brewing their tea from the herbs and plants that were available to them, including the Whorled Loosestrife. These "Liberty Teas" were drank by the women of the time as their way to show support for their country going to war with Britain.

I found some wild grapes growing along the trail. I'm sure some people thought I was nutty crawling around under the greenery to get this picture.

I found a large patch of Multiflora Rose. Of course this pretty flower is also an invasive species. It is native to Japan, Korea and China and currently has invaded over 45 million acres in the United States.

Multiflora Rose has been used as ornamental flowers, erosion control, "living fences" for livestock, highway median strip plantings, crash barriers, and given away for free as wildlife cover. Somewhere along the line we figured out that this plant is unstoppable.

And there was a big patch of daylilies right where I started on the bike path. Although these are not native to the area they are also not considered invasive...yet!

I figured I had at least a few decent pictures but I still wanted to get a photo of the farm that I had blogged about in April. I headed to where Maple Street and the Norwottuck Rail Trail meet and settled on the rocks to enjoy the view and take a few pictures.

I was again amazed that a scenic view like this was behind a shopping mall. I can only imagine how beautiful this area was before all the stores were built.