Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

adrian_turtle, cattitude and I went for a delightful walk today. Yesterday I'd figured we would need to get out in the morning in order to avoid the rain; that turned out not to be true, but by the time we realized that Adrian was over here, and Cattitude and I were ready to head out, for what turned out to be a couple of hours in the sunshine. (It was mid-60s F (18 C) when we went out, very good walking weather.)

I wanted to head south on Lake Street and explore a little I hadn't done before; the two of them worked out a route while I was tediously renewing my prescriptions. (Rite Aid's system is a lot more efficient than Walgreen's, in case you're trying to decide between those two chains.)

We walked down Lake Street past Route 2 into Belmont, and revised our plans when it transpired that Google Maps had tried to guide us onto the highway. The streets in that bit of Belmont are curved around Little Pond. We found the unpaved, very pleasant access route from the street to the pond, and spent some time looking at the water. That bit of woods is mostly conifer, so we were walking on dried pine needles. The other pleasant surprise in Belmont was some late, very fragrant honeysuckle blossoms: I smelled them before I saw them, which is unusual. (I like honeysuckle, but not as much as Cattitude does.)

After Little Pond we found the Fitchburg Cutoff Path, which connects to the Minuteman Bikeway at Alewife Brook T station. There's a boardwalk leading from that path into a delightful constructed wetland, built for storm water management. In among the water lily pads, we saw several frogs, the first Cattitude or I had seen in the wild in years. (There is, alas, a worldwide amphibian shortage.) First Cattitude spotted two fairly small frogs sitting on lily pads (not jewel-colored tree frog small, but small), and then Adrian saw a much larger one swimming below the surface. We spent quite a while watching the frogs sit, swim, and even hop, and then walked a little further and saw more frogs, including another large one. There were also dragonflies and a goldfinch and a wood duck, all of which are good, and all of which we had seen in the area earlier in the summer (okay, we probably hadn't seen these dragonflies before, though the goldfinch or duck might be one of the ones we'd seen in August).

We eventually decided that lunch would be a good idea, walked the last bit to the T station, and went to Central Square for lamb shank, pumpkin kibby, and then ice cream and tea.