We live near Silver Lake in Bellingham, and watched with others as rain fell for two days before turning to snow, and then kept snowing the whole day. What had been forecast as 1-3 inches of snow turned out to be more like 5 inches, at least in our neighborhood. We woke to a winter wonderland Halloween morning and headed right out before the warming sun melted everything and returned us to autumn.
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Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors. Link to all Marjorie’s books.
We visited the Hopedale Parklands on a misty morning to record a “Corridor Chat” with folks from the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor. We were talking about Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are, and tips found in the book to help you have a safer, more positive experience spending time outdoors. Here’s the final 10 minute video: https://youtu.be/NwLnKLFJvJk
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Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors. Link to all Marjorie’s books.
Town commons are, well, common throughout New England, but this doesn’t mean they have remained static throughout their history. Many town commons have been altered, “improved” and in Bellingham’s case, built on and almost forgotten. But today, Bellingham has a vibrant town common that is well-situated, beloved, and much visited. Community events take place there often, and visitors, both adults and children, spend time there daily throughout the year.
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Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors. Link to all Marjorie’s books.
Prospect Street had been a huge barrier on the SNETT in Franklin for many years. When the trail was still a rail line, a bridge carried local traffic over the rail line. When the line fell into disuse, apparently it was easier (and short term was cheaper) to fill the rail line with dirt rather than repair the bridge. Since then, the SNETT has been getting developed as a rail trail, section by section,
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Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors. Link to all Marjorie’s books.
We had driven past the trail kiosk for the Blackall Family Preserve in Cumberland, RI a number of times, but had no real idea if we would find any Easy Walks in this area. Many trails in Cumberland are quite rocky. This one might have been too. But “Be willing to explore,” is a strategy for finding Easy Walks I urge my readers to adopt. Following on this is, “Have a plan B.”
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Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors. Link to all Marjorie’s books.
The 8 arch bridge is best enjoyed off the trail. The arches are only visible to passers-by, but still, the views from the bridge itself–now that is what keeps me returning to this spectacular spot along the Holliston Upper Charles Trail.
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Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors. Link to all Marjorie’s books.
We had a perfect outdoor fall day to try forest bathing at Elmbank in Wellesley, MA. The bright blue sky offered a perfect backdrop for the glowing fall foliage. The breeze provided a varying shower of leaves as the wind increased then died back down.
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Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors. Link to all Marjorie’s books.
Publicizing my latest book, Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are, has been taking up a lot of my energy, so it was wonderful to get out on the trail with local grands over the weekend to help them enjoy the temporary Storywalk® posted along the trail at the SNETT in Bellingham near the Center Street entrance to the trail. New storywalks® will be posted each month
This handicapped accessible portion of the rail trail is busy these days, and got busier shortly after we’d finished reading the story when a group of folks hit the trail with the Franklin & Bellingham rail trail committee. Fortunately the trail is quite flat, wide, with extra space on each side of the stone dust trail where we could step off safely as groups of folks passed by. Most walkers wore masks, which we really appreciated.
The grands are both able to read these days, so it was fun to see them taking in the story page by page then rushing on to the next page of the story. They also took in the new signs posted by the rail trail committee, in cooperation with DCR, to identify various tree species along the trail. We got a little practice with our Latin as we walked.
Trolley Crossing Farm, which abuts the trail, has a produce stand next to the trail and local pumpkins were available.
The snag–you have to carry them back to the car with you.
My grands used some ingenuity to figure out a handy way to carry their small pumpkins, or as one said, her “pumpkinette.”
I had been on this same trail just the other day to tape another episode of our new Cable TV show, “Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are.” We wanted to highlight the storywalk® and learned about more railroad history from the rail trail committee member who walked with us that day.
It’s fun to travel, but it’s also wonderful to slip in short walks right around the corner from where we live. We are so lucky to have this great trail, still under development, available to visit whenever we want. Happy trails!
Marjorie
Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors, and is the author of Easy Walks in Massachusetts, 2nd edition, More Easy Walks in Massachusetts, 2nd edition, Easy Walks and Paddles in the Ten Mile River Watershed, Easy Walks South of Boston and Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are. Her memoir, the backstory of Easy Walks, is My Liturgy of Easy Walks: Reclaiming hope in a world turned upside down.
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In my quest to help get out the word about the newest trail book, Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are, I have reached out to various sources to arrange interviews. I will be on Stephanie Chandler’s Non-fiction Author’s Association podcast Wednesday, Oct. 14th at 1PM EST. Along with the podcast interview, Stephanie invited me to contribute a blog post about my journey. Here’s the post “Strategic Partnerships”--enjoy!
“The thing about strategic partnerships is…at least for me, they didn’t start out feeling very strategic. It helps if you find something to write about that you really love. In fact, it’s recommended, since you will be spending a lot of time with your topic, so you better have some pretty positive feelings about it, or else you are going to become unhappy very quickly. I really love to spend time outdoors. Even so, writing books about Easy Walks was not my plan, especially when I found myself unable to walk because of serious illness.” To read more: https://nonfictionauthorsassociation.com/strategic-partnerships-by-marjorie-turner-hollman/
Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors, and is the author of Easy Walks in Massachusetts, 2nd edition, More Easy Walks in Massachusetts, 2nd edition, Easy Walks and Paddles in the Ten Mile River Watershed, Easy Walks South of Boston and Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are. Her memoir, the backstory of Easy Walks, is My Liturgy of Easy Walks: Reclaiming hope in a world turned upside down.
Filed under Blog posts--Easy Walks
Marjorie Turner Hollman is a writer who loves the outdoors. Link to all Marjorie’s books.
We headed out to the Brimfield area for a bike ride recently, an overcast weekend morning. We hoped to find the Grand Trunk Trail parking area in Brimfield to be mostly empty. Despite the unfavorable weather, more cars than we were comfortable with had beaten us to the trail, so we moved on to Plan B–road biking a little farther west just off Route 20.
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Marjorie Turner Hollman 