The Outback

 

The meadow beyond the back yard is privately owned, but the owners maintain a border trail that abutters can walk.  Let's explore!

Views can be dramatic even on the plainest cloudy November day.  The meadow lies beyond the yard features here...

The meadow was growing high with grasses and brush all summer. The owner recently cut everything down for maintenance. Otherwise, it would become forested eventually, lose character and would be a different habitat.

A border path goes halfway round the meadow, then ends at the brook.

Below, can you see the brook as it flows toward bottom left. In 2018, this brook surged and washed out part of my street, as featured in previous post.

As the brook leaves the meadow....

Below, the meadow is to the left. Entrance to my yard (through an opening in the rock wall) is on the right.

LT followed me on the adventure.  She held a playful look for just long enough to catch it on film.

Good Morning

Later I went for a sandwich and found an unusual situation. In back of the store, was an archeological dig.

Recently this year, someone had found a shaped stone on the ground that was not natural to the area. He reported it to the state archaeologist. It could be paleolithic, I was told, which means possibly 12,000 years old.  Around that time, the New England area became habitable after the Ice Age.

So the archaologist came out with a team.  "you should go around back" said the sandwich guy.  Everyone was casual and friendly.

In the photo, they are sifting through the shallow soil. I was shown a small piece of sharpened chert that was just found. Chert is a sandstone related to flint, of which the nearest natural deposits are in the Hudson valley. So it is inferred that it was brought to this location by trade routes.  There are only a couple "paleo" sites in Connecticut, that is, where objects of 12,000 years ago, have been found.

Autumn Pastels