The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

nature

Trails get new stone benches

The new stone benches near Flint's Pond.

The new stone benches near Flint’s Pond.

Thanks to the generosity of the Ory family and the help of the Lincoln Department of Public Works, some new stone benches have been placed along Lincoln trails by the Lincoln Conservation Department. The first two to be installed are in the Upper Pump House Field with views out to Flint’s Pond and across the small meadow above the pump station on Sandy Pond Road.

For those unfamiliar with this area, the trail comes from the schools, crosses the Muster Field and the Lower Pump House Field, and enters the wood to the north of the field. It  goes up a small hill, crosses the Upper Pump House Field and then drops down into the pine woods behind the Carroll School. To make a full loop, you can continue to Adams Woods, exit onto Granville, cross over to Land’s End and follow the trail back to the schools.

The birds and the bees (Lincoln Through the Lens)

 

Some of Harold McAleer’s recent photo subjects include a hummingbird, a dandelion and bee, and a bluebird and her nest.
hummer

bluebird-adj

dandelion2

Readers may submit photos for consideration for Lincoln Through the Lens by emailing them to news@lincolnsquirrrel.com. If your photo is published, you’ll receive credit in the Squirrel. Photos must be taken in Lincoln and include the date, location, and names of any people who are identifiable in the photo. Previously published photos can be viewed on the Lincoln Through the Lens page of the Lincoln Squirrel.

Photo contest entries show an eye for nature

Shutters are snapping as entries come in for the Lincoln Garden Club’s nature photo contest.

Anyone who lives in Lincoln is encouraged to submit photos by May 26. The event will help the garden club finance a horticultural intern at the New England Wildflower Society who will design and install a native plant garden at Lincoln’s Station Park.

Photos submitted to the contest will be displayed at the Pierce House during the Lincoln Garden Club’s champagne reception on Sunday, June 7 from 5-7 p.m. Those in attendance will vote for their favorite pictures and elect one winner for each of three categories—landscape, fauna and flora. Winners will be notified by email by June 9. For more information on the contest, see this Lincoln Squirrel news acorn or the contest rules.

Also on June 7 is the garden club’s self-guided Garden Tour from 1-5 p.m. Those who purchase a Garden Tour ticket will get admission to the champagne reception, which in addition to the photo exhibit will feature live music, food prepared by Lincoln Garden Club members and a silent auction. Tickets are $45 per person in advance or $50 on June 7. For more information, visit the Lincoln Garden Club website.

Photo by Daniela Caride

Photo by Daniela Caride

Photo by Linda MacNeil

Photo by Linda MacNeil

Photo by Bob Mortiz

Photo by Bob Wadsworth

Photo by Mark Hopkins

Photo by Mark Hopkins

News acorns – 5/5/15

acornLibrary closes early on Saturday

On Saturday, May 9, the Lincoln Public Library will close at 4 p.m. in preparation for The Friends of the Lincoln Public Library’s Fine Arts Gala. See this Lincoln Squirrel story for more information.

Middlesex County DA to speak on parents, minors and alcohol

On Monday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m., Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan will give a presentation with a Q&A session on the civil and criminal liabilities of parents hosting social events at home or otherwise, where alcohol is served and teens and children are present. The issues of responsible drinking and safe driving will also be discussed.

The event will take place in the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School lecture hall and is free and open event to all parents of teenagers who attend schools in Lincoln or Sudbury. Please register in advance by emailing lscommunityconnections@gmail.com.

Fundraiser for Lincoln and Sudbury girls’ lacrosse

When you dine in or take out from the Lotus Blossom restaurant in Sudbury on Tuesday, May 12 from 5-9 p.m. and you mention L-S Girls Lacrosse, 20 percent of the sale will go to Lincoln-Sudbury girls’ lacrosse as we continue to create great memories for Lincoln and Sudbury girls.

L-S girls’ head lacrosse coach and Assistant U.S. National Team Coach Bowen Holden of Lincoln will also be running a four-day clinic on July 7-10 from 3:30-6:30 p.m. in Lincoln. This is an opportunity for children entering grades 3-9 of all levels of experience to learn the game, improve skills, and have a great time. Holden will be assisted by many L-S players and alumnae. Those attending Lincoln Summer Day Camp can extend their day with this clinic, and coverage will be provided between camps. To register, please go to the Lincoln Recreation Department website and register online. The cost is $250 and includes a clinic T-shirt.

Bird-a-thon event on May 15-16

Bird-a-thon, Mass Audubon’s friendly competition to financially support conservation across the Commonwealth,will engage hundreds of enthusiasts in an all-night/all-day bird identification marathon on May 15-16. The statewide contest challenges teams of birders of all abilities to identify the most species in 24 hours—this year from 6 p.m. on Friday, May 15 to 5:59 p.m. on Saturday, May 16.

Bird-a-thon has grown to become Mass Audubon’s single largest annual fundraising event, attracting thousands of supporters and raising more than $2 million since the competition began in 1983. In 2014, 800-plus people comprised 29 teams that traversed the state, and 270 species were identified either by sight or ear.

People who can’t compete in the field may still participate in various ways, including as “Bird-a-thon Boosters” to support teams or individuals by fundraising. To learn more, visit www.massaudubon.org/birdathon.

Climate justice activist to appear in Lincoln

A screening of “Bidder 70,” the award-winning documentary about 32-year-old climate justice activist Tim DeChristopher will be held on Tuesday, May 19 at 7 p.m. at St. Anne’s in-the-Fields Episcopal Church. The film will be followed by an audience Q&A with DeChristopher, now a student at Harvard Divinity School, who was sentenced to two years in federal prison for an act of peaceful civil disobedience protesting fossil-fuel extraction on public lands in Utah. The evening will be hosted by journalist, activist and St. Anne’s parishioner Wen Stephenson of Wayland, a contributing writer for The Nation and author of a forthcoming book featuring Tim’s story. Hosted by the Climate Justice Ministry at St. Anne’s in-the-Fields, together with 350Mass MetroWest, part of the statewide grassroots climate-action network 350 Massachusetts for a Better Future.

Organization seeks household items for former shelter residents

The Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable is having its annual Shower for Shelters that benefits families transitioning from shelters to new homes. Until Monday, May 11, people can bring donated items to the Lincoln Public Library. New items being sought include twin size sheets, pillowcases, and blankets; bath towels and face cloths; laundry detergent without scent or other allergens; cleaning products; flatware; water glasses and coffee mugs; diapers (all sizes); and gift cards to places like CVS and grocery stores.

News acorns – 04/27/15

(Editor’s note: This incorporates a correction to the second item made on April 29.)

Talk this Sunday on Flint homestead

The Lincoln Historical Society and the Lincoln Historical Commission present “The Flint House: Past, Present Future” on Sunday, May 3 at 2 p.m. in Bemis Hall. Come hear a talk by local historian Jack Maclean and see historic images of the Flint house, which was built on a mid-17th-century grant of 750 acres to the Flint family. The program also describes a planned tour of the house on October 4. This event also includes a brief annual meeting of the Lincoln Historical Society.

The Flint family homestead, across Lexington Road from the large white barn commonly referred to as Flint’s barn, dates back to the early 1700s and is filled with mementos of the town and the Flints. The house is protected by a Preservation Restriction Easement, the first agreement of its kind in Lincoln, which will be explained by the Lincoln Historic Commission.

Wednesday walks, other activities offered

springTrail walks led by Conservation Department staff are taking place until June 3, rain or shine, on Wednesdays from 9:30-11:30 a.m. Click here for a list of dates and locations. Sponsored by the Lincoln Conservation Commission and the Lincoln Council on Aging.

The Lincoln Land Conservation Trust (LLCT) is organizing three other events. For more information, see this LLCT web page.
  • “Bogs and Baas,” a two-part walk led by Ellen Meadors and Betty Levin on Thursday, May 21 at 10 a.m.
  • The Lincoln Land Conservation Trust (LLCT) annual meeting featuring naturalist and photographer Cherrie Corey apeaking on “Our Sense of Place” on Tuesday, May 26 at 7:30 p.m. in Bemis Hall.
  • “Caterpillars LIVE,” a family-friendly program on caterpillars with naturalist photographer Sam Jaffee on  Sunday, June 14 at 3 p.m. at Hartwell Pod A. Jaffee and his helpers will bring along live specimens for a show-and-tell presentation. Then he’ll lead small groups of participants on a short walk around the area to find specimens in their natural habitat, showing how easy it is to get into nature and make your own discoveries. Requested donation of $5 per person or $15 for families of three or more.
Maple syrup fundraiser brings in over $1,000

Lincoln School third-graders and Matlock Farm raised $1,000.50 for UNICEF during this year’s second annual maple syrup fundraiser. They would like to thank all those who bought their syrup and made this possible.

Garlic mustard pull is gearing up
Garlic mustard weed.

Garlic mustard weed (click to enlarge).

Lincoln’s annual garlic mustard weed pull is about to get underway. Free paper bags for the weeds will be distributed to residents at the transfer station on Wednesday, April 29 and Saturday, May 2 from 9 a.m. to noon, courtesy of the Lincoln Garden Club. The Department of Public Works will have a designated area at its Lewis Street facility for residents to drop off their bags of garlic mustard. Additionally, the Conservation Department will pick up full bags of garlic mustard in neighborhoods through May 31 if you contact them beforehand at 781-259-2612 or mckinnond@lincolntown.org. The DPW and the Conservation Department ask that you not put any wall lettuce in your bags.

Residents are also invited to pull garlic mustard as a group at the deCordova Sculpture Park and adjacent conservation land on Saturday, May 9 from 9 a.m. to noon (park at the far end of the deCordova parking lot). To volunteer, contact Conservation Department ranger Jane Layton at 781-259-2612 or laytonj@lincolntown.org.

Farrington hopes its nature programming will blossom

farr-crowd

Children enjoy the green open space at Farrington Nature Linc.

By Alice C. Waugh

A century-old Lincoln facility originally built to offer rural respite to undernourished city girls has reinvented itself and hopes to expand its programs that connect low-income urban children to the natural world.

Lincoln is known for its farms and conservation land, but Farrington Nature Linc is a bit of a hidden gem with its own particular niche, said executive director Wendy Matusovich. “There are many nature programs in Lincoln, but none of them have exactly the same lens as we do, which is to focus exclusively on kids from urban communities who don’t otherwise have access to nature. So few people in the Lincoln area know what we really do or what we are,” she said.

“Now and then we’ll get a child who’s afraid to sit down or run barefoot on the grass because they don’t know what’s there,” Matusovich added. “They don’t know what it’s like to be quiet in nature.”

At the rear of Farrington’s 75-acre property just north of Route 2 sits a 1912 brick dormitory. In his will, Charles Farrington, who died in 1907 and posthumously created Farrington Memorial in honor of his parents, asked his trustees to purchase a “healthy and beautiful locality to which children may be sent for a longer or shorter time to recuperate their health and draw new life, physical, mental and moral, to meet the responsibilities that may come to them.”

After World War II, the City Missionary Society hosted a variety of programs on the property, and from 1977 to 2004, Gould Farm ran a community residence for young adults with mental illness. However, after they left and another tenant for the dormitory couldn’t be found, Farrington lost the occupancy license for the building. It’s no longer in use and has fallen into disrepair, with floors strewn with chunks of fallen plaster and bits of parquet. To return it to its full overnight functionality, Farrington would have to rebuild it from the inside to bring it up to code, which would cost several million dollars, Matusovich said.

farr-calf

A boy makes friends with a calf at Farrington Nature Linc.

Since 2002, the property (now called Farrington Nature Linc) has been managed as a summer and after-school educational site hosting visits by Boston-area groups of children for single-day and multi-day nature experiences. Kids get the chance to hike through Farrington’s 75 acres of woodlands, fields and ponds; look for tadpoles and frogs in their pond and vernal pools; learn how plants grow in Farrington’s garden; and meet farm animals loaned to Farrington in the summer by Codman Farm.

Farrington Nature Linc is aiming to serve more kids and offer programs at during the school year as well as the summer. In 2014, it ran day programs during school vacations for the first time, with snowshoeing, sledding and hot chocolate in February and salamander searching, art projects and “frog chorus” in April. It also piloted a summer overnight camping experience with the help of a grant from the Clipper Ship Foundation. As a result, 121 children experienced night hikes, campfires and star gazing for the first time.

Also on the Farrington property, which was once a working farm, are the original 18th-century barn and farmhouse, which is now rented to tenants and also used for Farrington’s office. With proceeds from grants, donations and fundraising events—including a family spring hike on April 18 and the Fairy Festival on May 16—the board (which includes Lincoln residents Brooks Mostue, Susan Taylor, Sandra Bradlee and Jane Tierney) hopes to winterize the barn to allow indoor programs during the cold months and add staff time. Staff noticed during the first February program that while the kids had winter coat, many did not have snow pants or waterproof boots, so they also plan to build up an inventory of winter gear for their young visitors.

“The board is committed to helping Farrington grow into a year-round organization,” Matusovich said. To that end, it hopes to eventually rehabilitate the dormitory building and also boost its endowment, which currently supports only the summer programming. It also hosts birthday parties, family hikes and other activities that are open to all. The actual cost for a summer day visit to Farrington Nature Linc is about $6 per child, but Farrington has a sliding scale, so most groups only pay $1 per child and Farrington subsidizes the difference, Matusovich noted. Eighty percent of the children who visit qualify for the federally subsidized lunch program

Matusovich herself was further inspired after hearing Richard Louv speak at a conference last year. Louv is founder of the Children and Nature Network and author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder who urges kids to swap some of their screen time for green time. “It was an amazing day that gave me the state of the current research, which I hadn’t taken the time to delve into yet,” she said.

News acorns – 4/14/15

acornTonight: talk on Revolutionary battlefield

“Discovering Parker’s Revenge Battlefield: April 19, 1775″ is the topic of a talk on Tuesday, April 14 at 7:30 p.m. in Bemis Hall. The speaker will be Dr. Meg Watters of PBS’s “Time Team America” and principal investigator for the ongoing Parker’s Revenge Project at Minute Man National Historical Park. She’ll discuss efforts to better understand the Battle Road engagement between the retreating British regulars and the militia and Minute Men of Lexington, Lincoln and surrounding towns on April 19, 1775. The site is on the border of Lincoln and Lexington within the national park.

Dr. Watters received her B.A. in classics from Trinity College, an M.A. in GIS and remote sensing in archaeology from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in new methods for archaeo-geophysical data visualization at the University of Birmingham, where she helped build the IBM Visual and Spatial Technology Centre, where she provided geophysical survey expertise.

The talk is one of several observances of the start of the Revolutionary War. For more information, click on one of the event titles on the Lincoln Minute Men website and battleroad.org.

HATS to meet with MBTA official

On Thursday, April 23, the Hanscom Area Towns Committee (HATS) will host Paul Regan, Executive Director of the MBTA Advisory Board. The meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the Town Office Building.

Regan plans to discuss a broad range of topics related to the current state and future of the MBTA, including general matters raised by the recent winter’s challenges and the recently-issued report of the Governor’s special commission, as well as specific matters of concern to the four HATS communities. Also on the agenda for April 23 are updates on the Route 2 project and a status report from the MassPort/Hanscom Field Community Advisory Committee.

The public is welcome to attend all HATS meetings, which may also be viewed live on Lincoln public access media via lincolntv.pegstream.com, Verizon channel 33, or Comcast channel 8, or beginning several days after the meeting at lincolntv.pegcentral.com or on the local cable channels.

HATS is an alliance among the Selectmen and other officials of the towns of Lincoln, Concord, Lexington and Bedford that focuses on Hanscom Air Force Base, Hanscom Air Field, transportation and other regional matters. HATS recently had discussions with MassPort CEO Tom Glynn regarding MassPort’s strategic plans, various business and government experts helping manage Rt. 128 and related traffic concerns, the Air Force Base’s local commander, and senior representatives of the Governor’s Military Assets Task Force. For more information about HATS and access to agendas, minutes and videos, please visit www.hanscomareatownscommittee.com.

Film on wilderness preservation

Also on Thursday, April 23, join the Walden Woods Project for a special screening of a new film by Fulcrum Publishing, “Wilderness in America: From Conquest to Conservation.”  The 55-minute film chronicles the evolution of wilderness preservation in America over four centuries that ultimately led to the protection of 110 million acres.

The film will be shown at the Walden Woods Project’s Thoreau Institute at 44 Baker Farm Rd. in Lincoln. Free admission. To reserve seats, call (781) 259-4707 or email wwproject@walden.org. A wine and cheese reception, sponsored by the Cheese Shop in Concord will be held at 7 p.m. followed at 7:30 p.m. with remarks by  Robert C. Baron, Fulcrum’s founder and president, and the film screening.

The Walden Woods Project is a nonprofit organization that preserves the land, literature and legacy of Henry David Thoreau to foster an ethic of environmental stewardship and social responsibility. Click here for other outdoor springtime activities coming up in Lincoln.

COA trip to Mt. Auburn Cemetery

See some of the fascinating and beautiful places and monuments in this amazing historical and nature site on Friday, May 22 with the Council on Aging. After the tour of the cemetery, the group will go to Belmont Center for lunch at Asai. Each person will pay for their own lunch and cash is recommended. The trip is limited to 30 people. The Doherty’s bus will be at Lincoln Mall at 9 a.m. and arrive back in Lincoln around 2 p.m. For more information, contact Donna Rizzo at donna@ecacbed.com or Claire Mount at mounts781@gmail.com.