2020 has been a challenging year for most of us, and certainly more challenging for some than others. For those of us lucky enough to have kept healthy, we are keenly aware that often, remaining healthy has come at the cost of incredibly loneliness. and facing a different Thanksgiving, we wondered if we could do something different to help ease the loneliness just a little. Easy Walks lend themselves to time with older family members. It works for me too. The day promised to be overcast, and rather than plan a shortened visit, we suggested family meet us at a local trail where we could enjoy time taking an Easy Walk together.
My calendar for the day mostly was full (for me) and it promised to be comfortable and sunny. What to do before the sun set? Take a simple walk around the block.
Watering trough for horses now stands in a place of honor at the town common
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.
Glowing foliage surrounded us at Elmbank in Wellesley
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.
Enjoying the storywalk® along the SNETT in Bellingham
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
Renata, from the Franklin & Bellingham Rail trail committee, is responsible for getting new storywalks® up each month, and helped lead a group of folks along the trail
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.
New tree identification signs along the trail
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.
Gorgeous foliage seen from the opening to the trail at Trolley Crossing Farm
Trolley Crossing Farm, which abuts the trail, has a produce stand next to the trail and local pumpkins were available.
They got pumpkinsAfter posing–one more shot with the pumpkins
The snag–you have to carry them back to the car with you.
Handy pumpkin carrier!
My grands used some ingenuity to figure out a handy way to carry their small pumpkins, or as one said, her “pumpkinette.”
Tyler ready to get some footage for our new cable TV show
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.
Grabbing some shots of the Trolley Crossing Farm vegetable stand
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!
Enjoying time outdoors with Mark Mandeville and Raianne Richards of the Massachusetts Walking Tour, one wonderful partnership among others I have been blessed with on this journey!
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/
With the publication of my latest book, Finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are, I have been reaching out to various media outlets to help get out the word to those who might benefit from what the book has to share. As part of this effort, I have recently been interviewed for several podcasts–one is date sensitive (available only on the date broadcast, except for paying members) the others are available on an on-going, free basis.
Cable 8 in Bellingham/Mendon has agreed to partner with me to create an TV show visiting local trails. We will be talking about various ways viewers can take the ideas we talk about to safely get out on local trails and help them find Easy Walks in their own communities. Along the way we will be noting items of interest, local plants, foliage, mushrooms, and other fun items of interest along the trail
