Day Three

After breakfast, we decided to visit a nearby nature preserve, the Rock House Reservation, also in West Brookfield, which is owned by a Massachusetts conservation organization, the Trustees of Reservations. It’s one of the newer properties managed by the Trustees, and all of us in the Brookfields and surrounding towns were very excited when it opened to the public. The web page says of the site:

Glaciers created the rock shelter that gives the Reservation its name. Its large size and height and its southern exposure made the Rock House an excellent winter camp for Native Americans.

The first two thumbnails below depict an interpretive sign and the Rock House itself. Planted along the power lines is a butterfly garden; although the day wasn’t completely sunny, I did manage to photograph this spectacular fritillary.

We hiked one of the woodland trails up a steep hill, but there wasn’t much of a view. In fact, we weren’t even sure where we were, because we thought we would come upon a lookout. Fortunately, another party of hikers appeared from around the bend in the next minute and offered us their trail map. On the way back to the parking area, we walked along the eastern edge of spring-fed Carter Pond. Here is Gloria standing next to the Balance Rock, a large boulder deposited by the glacier; the pond was as smooth as a mirror today.

After lunch, we visited the newly-renovated Haston Free Public Library, and then stopped at the supermarket again. Just in time we arrived back at the house, because lightning flashed, thunder roared, and the rain came down in buckets. It was a good time to be in the kitchen baking cobbler with the blueberries we picked yesterday.