So cool!

Autumn Evening Light Cook's Pond Worcester MA @gwlandtrust.bsky.social

"...in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community." Pope Leo XIV Dilexi te, 2025

Cold, breezy with gusts, clear, no clouds overhead, crisp, sunrise.

Went up Mount Wachusett this morning. Clear, light haze, Boston/ Monadnock/ Worcester all clearly visible, gusty wind, up at the top. Princeton MA

My 2025 Hike Worcester Week: 1. Middle River 2. Parsons 3. Puffer Heninger -> Spring Ledge Farm 4. Holbrook -> Donker 5. KinneyWoods 6. Cascades Falls Loop 7. Coes-> Hadwen 8. Broad Meadow Brk 9. Asnebumskit Briarcliff 10. Moreland Woods 11. Asnebumskit N #hikeworcesterweek @gwlandtrust.bsky.social

Messing about on Commonwealth Ave. and enjoying the area on a beautiful morning. Boston MA

Taking the girls out to Pasture C this morning at Donker Farm, a Worcester MA conservation area managed by @gwlandtrust.bsky.social

The next Hike of GWLT's Hike Worcester Week is at 525 Salisbury St Holden at the White Oak Land Conservation Society sign & hiking to Spring Ledge Farm! These wilder woods will be good fun & will be led by Colin Novick. To officially sign up for #hikeworcesterweek go to www.gwlt.org/hike-worcest...

Hike Worcester Week kicks off Fri Sept 19th @ 5pm with a hike on the Middle River Boardwalk! Led hike starts at the Blackstone Visitor Center, 3 Paul Clancy Way, Worc MA 01607. Support GWLT's trail stewardship by officially registering at: www.gwlt.org/hike-worcest...

I had always wondered, assuming the time, weather, energy, all lined up perfectly, would I be willing to take on The Knifes Edge on Mt Katahdin? The odds against everything lining up to find out were long, but they happened, and we did! It was definitely a wild stretch, but I'm glad we did it!

Got to enjoy the Trails End Festival in Millinocket Maine Saturday morning, complete with a parade, live music, and cool booths of vendors and organizations! Totally loved it!

For those of you who knew about Ryan & my trip north to Baxter State Park to climb Katahdin and reach Baxter Peak, yup, we summited Friday and in a blue bird blue sky day! Perfect!

Ducks at dusk on Cook's Pond Cook's Pond Conservation Area Worcester MA

Sunset atop Pakachoag Hill for an outdoor viewing of "Pakachoag: Where the River Bends" at the College of the Holy Cross, projected on the side of the Prior Center for the Performing Arts.

Happy Wilderness Day! 9/3/64 Pres Johnson signed Wilderness Act “A wilderness, in contrast w those areas where man & his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth & its commnty of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain”

Worcester Massachusetts Municipal Preliminary Election Beth Israel Ward 1 Precinct 4 City Council At-Large Elimination Let's do this Worcester! Vote!

Yesterday Boston, Worcester, & Monadnock were all clear as a bell! Not much of a breeze, but the lack of haze is beautiful! From the summit of Mount Wachusett in Princeton MA

Tatnuck Square view of the double rainbow this evening!

Climate Change & Sea Level Rise in MA The Inquirer & Mirror: "Frequent southerly storms, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation will relocate its ranger shack to higher ground this fall to protect the structure & ensure the continued stewardship of the Coatue barrier beach www.ack.net/news/ncf-to-...

ICYMI: Donker Farm (and @colinnovick.bsky.social in his guise as shepherd) www.telegram.com/story/lifest...

The Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition is an invaluable group of conservation staff from nonprofits that share technical knowledge, support one another, organize around critical issues, and build a sense of community across the rural places, suburban areas, and cities of our state 1/3

Worcester Natural History Society: 200th Anniversary Lyceum Series "Worcester Women Naturalists: Past and Present"

Worcester from Wachusett Clear skies, light and variable breeze, cool, medium haze.

The South Wilcox Adirondack shelter on the Appalachian Trail in Massachusetts' Beartown State Forest was built in 1933, and the classic lines of the design are still just as awesome today almost a century later!

Appalachian Trail hike in Beartown State Forest with Gene generously acting as support crew for my one-way 8-ish mile hike. Best part, sighting a Bear on Beartown Mountain Rd in Beartown State Forest! So cool! #Tyringham #AppalachianTrail #Massachusetts

A week of DC by tent at the NPS Greenbelt Park was really great (even if it did rain a lot at night)

Attending Land Trust Alliance #advocacydays in Washington DC to meet w our Federal delegation & agency reps on behalf of the @gwlandtrust.bsky.social ! Staying @ National Park Service Greenbelt campground while local, because a conservationist prefers the forest. Exec Dir @colinnovick.bsky.social

Palm Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Worcester MA

Really enjoyed the late season snow storm in Worcester Massachusetts.

As Lent begins to draw to a close, the images in the church are covered, and in a week we begin Holy Week. The time of preparation is coming to a close. Cathedral of Saint Paul Diocese of Worcester

March 31, 1933: The Emergency Conservation Work Act is signed into law, creating several federal agencies, including the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The first CCC camp would be established on George Washington National Forest in Virginia.

The Fortune article on the 1st org chart is paywalled, but the article, like the chart it shares, is beautiful! It's for a railroad company & it captures the organic nature of the relationships & functions in a way no pyramid or set of stacked boxes could. This isnt just lines of authority I <3 this

Worcester State University Department of Earth, Environment & Physics student, Katie Steeves, captured a field game camera video of an otter at the WSU GWLT Environmental Field Station on Patch Reservoir in Worcester MA! (ignore time & date stamp) Check it out! #conservation #otter #Worcester #WSU

Conan O'Brien Remarks Accepting Mark Twain prize at the Kennedy Center Excerpts published 3/24/2025 By Cathy Applefeld Olson, Fortune Magazine “Accepting an award named after Mark Twain is a responsibility,” he said. “One cannot invoke Twain without understanding who he was & what he stood for.”

Appalachian Trail, Tyringham Mass #appalachiantrail

“We've been cooped up all winter and we thought pulling together energetic, adventurous, uplifting environmental films would be a great way to get all charged up for the spring and the summer,” Colin Novick, executive director of the Greater Worcester Land Trust.

The Trump EPA is abandoning all work on Environmental Justice (EJ) Areas, and this is definitely not helpful for places like the City of Worcester, as most of the city qualifies as an EJ area by the 2020 census. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/c...

The USPS just issued Appalachian Trail stamps! Very cool!

The Cascades have a little roar going on this morning! #Worcester #Conservation #waterfalls

USCCB filed a lawsuit Feb 18 challenging the govt’s unlawful suspension of funding for its refugee admission prog. USCCB has partnered w US govt & locally based Catholic partners to help nearly a million find safety & build their lives www.usccb.org/resources/2025.02.18%20USCCB%20Complaint_0.pdf 1/2

The countryside around Monte Caminetto is quite nice from the Fraterna Domus #Italy #Jubilee

Trump has furthered Russian interests by: - attacking our allies (Mexico & Canada) with trade war; - attacking our allies (NATO) w a refusal to the basic tenet of the alliance, mutual defense, & publicly announcing to Europe's primary adversary that we won't come to their defense, while, (1/4)

When a judge issues an injunction, and says you must alter your executive behavior, you do it, not because you agree with the judge, but because that is the pact we have made with our government and our Constitution. 1/3

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Candlemas (with the blessing of candles), & The Blessing of Throats (St. Blaise.) It was quite the Mass! At the Cathedral of Saint Paul, Diocese of Worcester

An absurd distraction: The use of the Gulf of Mexico's name goes back to 1552, when used in print by a Spanish historian. In 1607 there's a world map identifying it as the Gulf of Mexico. These references predate the modern nation of Mexico and are instead references to the historic Aztec city...

Divine Mercy Parish, Blackstone MA (& just a tiny bit in RI!) First station of 12 in the Diocese of Worcester Jubilee Pilgrimage celebrating the global Jubilee of Hope and the Diocesan 75th Anniversary

Gene & I setting off to hike sections of the Metacomet Monadnock Trail and the New England National Scenic Trail in Warwick MA at DCR Mount Grace State Forest!

This morning the hay was delivered, unloaded, and stored, in arctic temps, and all under the watchful eyes of Shadow, our lead inspector sheep, who was having such a good time that her tail kept wagging! Donker Farm Worcester MA #urbanfarm #urbanag #urbanagriculture #conservation