Indeed the holidays are upon us! It’s an exciting time of the year when we share gifts with those we love. We have four fabulous ideas for the nature lovers in your life:
Ipswich River Watershed Association Membership (Regular $40, Students & Seniors $25)
*Includes a paddling map!
Ipswich River Paddling Map for the avid Paddler ($5)
*This beautiful 18” x 24” two-sided map provides paddlers with important trip planning information including access points, landmarks and distances.
Bay Circuit Trail Guide for the walkers & hikers (8)
The Water Closet book for the reader & dreamer ($20)
A bite more about The Water Closet:
Written by Pike Messenger, this collection of essays offers a “rich and enjoyable assortment of water-related” stories originally for a weekly column by the Middleton Stream Team. The Middleton Stream Team is active in the Ipswich River Watershed stewarding conservation, advocacy and education, topics of which these essays span while often offering the reader the feeling of being with them, amidst the birds, trees and water. Fitting for this season, we’d like to share this excerpt from the December 2008 essay, “White Christmas.”
Last Friday morning, we broke trail through deep snow from Sharpners Pond Road, North Andover, south to where Essex Street crosses Emerson Brook in Middleton. Had we gone that way a century ago we would have had a easy going, despite the snow. Essex railway trains would have cleared our path. The rails are long gone, the ties part of the soil. There is no need to step aside and wave to passengers en route Salem or Lawrence. The wetland on either side of the rail bed is the home of red maples, ducks, herons, muskrats, otters and turtles.
Single file on, on foot, we swapped point now and then to share the work of breaking through the gifts of our four storms. The top four inches had fallen the day before; bushes and trees, thanks to cold and clouds, were still coated making for a quiet wonderland. The new snow showed few tracks… Midway on our slow trek, we came upon a beaver lodge where there had been much commotion in the snow and an open hole through the thick ice above where the beaver’s underwater entrance should be. On closer examination we found no large beaver tracks… There were fresh otter tracks obviously coming up from the icy water. They had emerged to slide down the rail bed shoulder. Toboggan-like belly marks were clear. After several slides they returned to water.
Whether you’re reading stories aloud to kids or snuggled up with a cup of tea, we think you and yours will enjoy these stories and perhaps be inspired to venture out into the woods or open space to make your own discoveries of Mother Nature’s free gifts this season. We’ll be here at Riverbend, 143 County Road in Ipswich from 8am-5pm this week and welcome you to come by to buy your gifts!