- Temp:
- Playlist: Highway Men, Best of The Village People,Best of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
- Ames Nowwel State Park Abington
- Miles: 4.5
- Total time: 2hours 23minutes
Can’t believe I only live 20 minutes from here and haven’t visited it since I was 18 for a family reunion. Originally there was grist mill late 1700. About 1920 it was bought and Beaver Brook was dammed creating Cleveland Pond and land was used as a bird sanctuary and hunting grounds. Not sure if those two mix? Ames Nowwel bought the land shortly after.
As the above map shows there a many trails of varied terrain to explore. Being first time here I was surprised the pond was so large, but pleasantly surprised.
A wood duck house put up close to the waters edge. The pole is metal to discourage a invader from stealing eggs during a 5 week incubation. Unlike other ducks the wood duck nests above the ground in vacant woodpecker holes. Once the ducklings hatch they leave the nest the next day and make their way to nearby water usually rivers and shallow ponds and lakes. It is one of the prettiest ducks, very colorful of any duck.
Beavers at work as seen by the leftover “beaver trimmings”. This large tree will have smaller branches chewed off and either used for food or to make a damn. In this case the it will be food. They eat the layer just under the bark.
An old beaver damn can be seen in background. Seems they retreated back to Cleveland Pond where they live just as easily as in a damn. Their lodge can be seen from the waters edge a small walk further along the pond.
A grave stone from a farmer many years ago. This is the last remaining stone of the Richards Family Burial Grounds. Have to wonder what happened to the others. A little way up the trial is small clearings that possibly could have been fields that still have apple trees.
At the bottom of Cleveland pond you find this damn with the stones in the foreground that may have been part of a mill. The damn is fairly new. There a lot places to the left of the damn to cast line for fish. Bass, pickerel, sunfish, bullheads, crappie and perch.
Winter can be the hardest time to take pictures as it is hard to get any color. With many rock ledges the northern side can have a lot of green moss to lighten things up.
WTF? This is not the color I was looking for. NOTHING pisses me off more than finding something of this sort deep in the woods. Just a quick question for the ass who threw this alongside the trail. If you carried/drank it for the last 30 minutes why can’t you carry it back out?