Mr and Mrs Wheeler

The state forest was once the home of the Wheeler family. Here is s shot of his gravestone . He died in 1802 at the age of 76 years old. Mr Wheeler was also a Revolutionary War soldier. I would imagine he settled in the area after the Rev war. A farm this far west prior to that may not have lasted long.

Now thats a rock

This is a cave thats actually a huge slab that has fallen off the upper face. Its probably 30 ft deep into the cave and you could sleep in there with out a problem. There is a fire pit and I have found the bottom of an old glass bottle that was green in color. I can imagine this cave being a prime spot to stake out deer from.

Lunch for everyone

We stopped in the upper field for lunch and so did a coyote. Mohawk is a wild place with lots of coyote kills in the winter. We have never seen deer or coyote in the forest, but heard a pack kill a deer one night, while camping in one of the cabins. We checked it out the next day and waited the following night in hopes of catching sight of the pack. They did not return but the crows had a party and spent the day ripping out select morsels.

I know I left it around here some place !

We took a trip up to Mohawk Trail State Forest for a little snowshoe and bushwhacking.
I always wonder if squirrels or chipmunks ever find the nuts they hide.

Scooby dooby du wah

Jazz is admittedly not some thing that I know anything about.

While I may appreciate someone singing scat I probably know more about other kinds.
Its great that animals leave us these clues. Its really the best way to identify the species. Notice the hair maybe squirrel ? Hey I didn't open it up to examine the bone fragments or at least I didn't show you a picture of me doing it. It science.

Ah ! Summer

Come on give our illusions... We had lunch on the beach over looking the reservoir. It was tropical (upper forties).. I can still remember my upper forties!

Move em Out!

One of the Geocaches at Quabbin brought us to a Crypt that was part of a cemetery which had been moved. Part of the project involved moving five towns out of the area that would comprise the reservoir and it's watershed. Today this is similar to the impact caused by the Three Gorges Dam in China. Granted that project is much bigger but its similar in nature. I can't imagine someone saying we are taking your town and you have to move everything . Check out Three Gorges here .

This is a shot of the crypt.

Quabbin

Quabbin is called the accidental wilderness , read about it here

We decided that the warm weather should be used to do a little Geocaching. Its basically a treasure hunt game that is played world wide. Check it out here it is lots of fun and people put Geocaches in places that are interesting. We have certainly seen things we would have never even known existed. In the Quabbin we were after six Geocaches. We found five. The first was near and abandoned boat house which to my surprise had boats still in it. Check out my other blogs for the nautical side of things . But here is a picture of the boats which despite the porky poop were still intact.

Wendell State Forest

We love Wendell! We actually do spend a fair amount of time here as its 7599 acres and just about in our backyard. Its about 3 miles up the road from here. Its all up hill , Wendell has a nice view from Jerusalem Hill. We decided to do a quick , ended up to be 3 hrs , shoe up to the top. At night you can see the light from the War Memorial on Greylock ,if its clear from this spot. We do tramp around Wendell at night. I have only gotten close to lost ,when we missed the trail ,two winters ago in the snowless winter and our batteries started dying. But Hey I belong to Central Mass Search and Rescue , so my buddies would have found us ! How embarrassing would that be ? Here is a link to Wendell We hike through Hidden Valley to get to the top of Jerusalem Hill and bushwhack our way back. If you don't know the area stick to the trails. It was a nice day but it was getting warm at the end.