Fragments from where the trunk shattered into three pieces, the standing stump, and two standing ash snags to its left

Ash stump and Ash snag neighbors, with all the small branches missing

Trunk and pieces cleared from the train. Lichens and mushrooms are still colonizing this snag, but they'll probably cycle to different decomposers now that it's down

Cleared trail

Joining the Ash Graveyard.

A brittle White Ash (Fraxinus americana) that shattered in the wind shattered again as it hit the trail. I cleared the debris from the tail, in #BoxboroughMA, in Beaver Brook Meadow / Steele Farm, but there is some chainsaw work needed.

A forest above a yellow dry meadow edge. Sparse dead trees with amputated limbs are heavily draiped with Asiatic Bittersweet, festooned with bright red berries. Denser, older, intact forest fills in around a hundred yards back.

An Eastern Red-cedar (Juniperus virginiana) standing in the wind between the horse pasture and meadow. This Juniper seems bent on sticking little plooms of branch tips out through feet thick of nested Asiatic Bittersweet tangled around the trunk. A good strategy against a foe who uses girdling to top its host.

A dead ash tree (likely Fraxinus americana) with the last few thick limbs carrying a massive load of bittersweet vibes hanging down like a skirt

An ascending gradient from field through shrub with bright red Asiatic Bittersweet berries on vines covering the shrubs entirely, to a large Juniper (Eastern Red-cedar probably) losing the battle to Bittersweet over 50 feet up.

Hey #BoxboroughMA, Beaver Brook Meadow / Steele Farm has tree lines completely given over to Asiatic Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus). It spreads from the highway (I495) and destroys advancing forest and edges faster than overpopulated deer, then works that edge back.

#invasivespecies #parks

Mason-Rice in Newton ranked #15. There was a time when that school was #1. Ah well...
From the Dept of Education
#bestschools #schoolrankings #Massachusetts #weston #westonma #wellesleyma #belmontma #cambridgema #boxboroughma #ActonMA #lexingtonma #newtonma #MichelleLaneRealEstate
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I've seen bigger crowds at the #BoxboroughMA (pop. 5,500) Fifer's Day parade boxboroughminutemen.org/fifers-day-2.... Sad on many levels, but right now I'm feeling for the service members who don't want to perform in a pageant for a tin pot wannabe dictator. Doesn't honor them or their sacrifice.