​2) Climbing New Hampshire's 48 4,000 Footers by Eli Burakian.

Actually there are more that 48 4,000 foot mountains in New Hampshire so--while the 48'ers like to pretend at objectivity--this list is subjective, too. This is the basic book for the task of hiking all those mountains. It contains suggested routes and maps. Maps are a plus, by the way. MacGray's book assumes you have separate maps on you--and you should--but it is nice to have these as well. I have used the routes in the book when planning. Most of the time I have taken the exact route. At other times I have modified my route using another book--in the honorable mentions--and/or those maps. The text is brief and to the point, which I like.

4) In High Places with Henry David Thoreau by John Gibson

This is the history book I was telling you about. It also has routes and maps! I am a big fan of Thoreau's writing--he will appear on a different list--and when I have managed to walk in his footsteps I have found this book to be indispensable. However, this is not a general book. The mountains picked are rather niche, thanks to the subject matter. Thoreau--who walked a great deal--needed to have spent some time writing about them in order for them to be included here. However, my readers will note the Thoreau-heavy blog posts for Katahdin,  Washington, and Wachusett. I gotta get back out to Greylock, and when I do...this book is coming with me.

5) 50 Hikes in Massachusetts by Brian White and John Brady

Yes, there are hikes right here in the Commonwealth. When I feel like heading out but do not know where to go exactly, this is the book I take. I used it as recently as Thursday when I went to Leominster State Forest. Pretty much any hike in Massachusetts I have taken has been planned using this. It has maps but I often diverge a bit. This has nothing to do with their quality! It has more to do with my confidence with lower elevation hiking. I do, however, plan those alternate routes in advance as well...and I have detailed maps. Spontaneity isn't always a good idea in the wild.

​Another great thing about this book is that it has many easier hikes. This, alone makes it worth having. Hiking doesn't have to be a toxic race to the highest, most dangerous peak. That is not very sabbath, after all...

 6) Field Guide to North American Wildflowers: Eastern Region by the National Audubon Society

​I picked this up out of envy. My brother Dan--who features largely in many of my posts--is a wildlife biologist. Hiking with him is a hobbit-like excursion where I follow him around as he identifies birds by their song, animals by their poop, and plants by their leaves, needles, bark, and roots. I wanted to get in to the game myself. What a great way to enhance one's dialogue with nature!

Anyway, I love this book. It takes a while to figure it out because it relies on the reader knowing at least the basics off what they are looking at. That said, I have enjoyed it during my sabbath breaks on smaller mountains. If you know anything from my various posts, sermons, and so on, you know that it is that it is OK to enjoy something you aren't good at. Also, I think it is helping me get better....

Honorable Mentions:

Here are two more that are deserving of note. The first is The 4,000 Footers of the White Mountains: A Guide and History by Steven Smith and Mike Dickerman. This thing is the Bible of the 48'ers. My wife swears by it. When I go off the suggested trail in the Burakian book, I always consult this. It only gets an honorable mention because I don't seem to use it as much. It is dense. There are no helpful maps. However, it has one big advantage that the other book does not; there is a winter description for each mountain. Had I consulted it before hiking Mount Jackson, I might have been more prepared for the icy ledge and the high winds that greeted me.

Finally, I wanted to mention the thin book entitled "Guide to the Wapack Trail" by the Friends of the Wapack. I have mentioned this trail before. It begins on Mount Watatic and runs to the Pack Monadnocks straight through some of my favorite landscape in the world. It is a long day hike--21 miles--or can be done in pieces. I would love to take a day and do it this year...

Anyway, that is all for now.  You got me through my morning! I hope your Christmas is going well...  :-)

I was out in my garden this morning harvesting potatoes and then planting squash and peppers in their place.  They are an experiment. Everything is an experiment these days. While I hope they grow and create food for my labor I do not expect it.  I do it because I like being outside, even in this heat, taking part in the ecosystem around me.  Its not like a hiking trip at all. However, in the midst of the constant sound and presence of cars, lawnmowers, walkers, and leaf blowers there is some nature to be had.  It is in the garden and under the trees where the landscaper doesn't go.  Sometimes, it is in the sound of the river that runs just across the street.

The Charles River (called the "Quinobequin" in Algonquin) here in Natick is a catalyst for argument these days.  You see, there is the issue of the dam (an earthen barrier referred to more often as a park) and the spillway (a concrete barrier colloquially referred to as a dam).  Regulators say that something must be done.  It is unsafe as it is and the solution comes down to repair of the spillway--which would require removing all the trees (and therefore the ecosystem) in the park--or removal of the spillway (which would mean restoring the flow of the river and lowering the water level above it as well as taking away our tiny waterfall). 

Emotions are high.  It will be a change either way and people are rarely comfortable with change.  I feel it too. I know that--after the better part of two decades living here--whatever will happen will feel a little bit like a loss to me.  I have raised my children by the river.  We have paddled as far as we could manage both upstream and down.  I walk past it many times each day and wave to the people I know enjoying their coffee and watching the water go by.  I have sat by the spillway with family, friends, and congregants having some fairly momentous conversations. I have made observations concerning the local flora and fauna here in the weblog. I will miss the way it is now and am grieving what is to come. 

I have friends on both sides of this debate--repair v. removal--and I understand why people feel so strongly about this issue.  We are talking about our home and our homes. However, things have gotten heated in some quarters in ways that reflect the current political landscape.  No doubt they will continue to be. On the social networks (which I am not fond of but have to use) it seems that we cannot help but slide a bit from finding our way together into devaluing the opinions of others.  There is lots of snark these days. There are arguments about whose opinion "matters most."

Just like on the national stage each side even has a different language for the discussion.  I will tell you my opinion, but fellow Natickites already know it because I used the word "spillway" instead of "dam" to describe...um...well...the spillway. 

I have recently noticed that most (but not all) of my neighbors have put up signs in favor of maintaining the spillway in South Natick.  This does not surprise me.  I will not hazard specific reasons because they can speak for themselves.  It is a nice spot and--as I described above--part of a profound set of memories and connections for all of us who live on its banks.  That said, I cannot agree with them.  I am in favor of keeping the trees in the park and removing the spillway.

There are reasons for my position and, again, if you live here you probably already know what they are; Removal of the spillway would increase biodiversity, expanding the range of a number of species.  This is something I believe in strongly.  Heck, I have an ecology blog. Also, restoring the river has been a priority for the local Nipmuc people for a long time.  After all we have done to Native Americans in this country, removing a spillway that serves no clear purpose seems literally like the least we could do.  Finally, removal and restoration is the most cost-effective choice.  This town is growing and will be for some time.  Our needs are growing too.  I would like the money to be put elsewhere in support of this community. 

There is also another concern.  Maybe it is a personal one but I will share it anyway. When I decided to become a minister (I was 19) I decided also to walk a path of faith as I see it.  Seminary, fellowship, and ordination reinforced that decision. My theology has changed but my walk has not.  Part of that walk is doing what you think is the right thing to do.  I fail plenty of times.  I am a pastor not a saint.  That said, When faced with as clear a decision as this--where the ecological, cultural, and economic impact point in one direction--I cannot go back on that walk because right now it might feel inconvenient to me.  I believe the world isn't about me.  It is about the "Great Whatever."  It is about living in harmony with nature and with each other.  It is about taking the time to set aside my own ego to work for restoration of rivers and, frankly, of many other things.  I have to stand on principle, even if I don't know exactly what will happen next.

Of course, another part of the walk of faith is understanding that change--the very thing that makes us anxious--does, in fact come.  We cannot stop it.  There will be change either way.  Things will not be the same.  Both paths can lead us to wonder what it will be like in our neighborhood in a few years. However, I have spent a great deal of time on and beside rivers without dams and honestly they are pretty, too. I expect that--no matter if the spillway is there or not--people will still be called down the banks of the Quinobequin with our coffee and our thoughts for a very long time.

This post is already too long.  I am going to stop now and just leave you with some links to more information that might help if you are interested in either my reasoning or the specific issue here in town.

First, my ecological theology is in development.  However, I have posted a three-part "curriculum" that I wrote here at the Walks Blog;
Environmental Literacy In Creation I
​Environmental Literacy in Creation II
​Environmental Literacy in Creation III
​
​Also here is the link to the FAQ page from the town government.  It is regularly updated as we learn more about the project and its impact and is worth looking at.    Generally the evidence here--written by engineers and scientists with expertise in dams and their removal--supports spillway removal. So...

Here is the webpage of Save Natick Dam

Finally one version of a psalm I wrote for the river as the first thing I posted here. 

Yes... I know that this is the non-church blog.  Still, this is more about nature and spirituality than anything else and that is really what this is about.  I am taking a course/workshop online about ecojustice and ecological literacy for religious leaders.  We had an assignment to write a "psalm of praise" for our local social ecosystem.  The "praise" part hung me up a bit because humans--even well-meaning ones--make quite a negative impact on the environment wherever they live...and that is pretty much anywhere.

But this is what I came up with after taking the kayak out on the Charles River (Quinobequin in Algonquin).  I could praise the river and the life it supports, and the people who are fighting to restore and protect it...

April on The Charles: A Psalm of Praise   
by: Adam Tierney-Eliot

Praise God for the awakening of creation
In the In the temperate biomes of New England
In the Inland marshes and deciduous forests of Massachusetts
In the fertile valley of the meandering Quinobequin

Praise God in all the miraculous wonder
That emanates from its waters
From the kin-dom of animals;
The turtles;
     Both sliders and painters
          Rolling off the logs at another's approach
The rustling on the banks of new life;
     Of Rodents and their predatory foxes
          finding their place by the water
The swans on their nest,
The geese (mostly Canadian),
And mallards on the river current
     Searching for insects darting under the surface
And in the air;
The red-tailed Hawk,
The Herons hidden away
     Waiting for their fish,
And the frantic flight of the red-winged black bird
     Reveling in the new growth
          Of new buds and insects on the old decomposing logs

Praise God for the kin-dom of plants, too;
Growing river grasses pushing up amid the spindly burning bushes
     on the wet, spongy soil
          Too new to know their names
And the first buds on the pines, the maples,
The milkweed,
The native skunk cabbage
     That thrives early on Quinobequin’s banks

All these many organisms and more
Diverse yet overlapping helping, feeding, being fed upon
Native, non-native, and invaders
In a constant cycle of life, death, and new life
Each organism reaching out to others
     Both hostile and hospitable

Praise the power of life and wildness
    To flourish in the cramped confines
         Of human sprawl
And praise the river-keepers
And dam-breachers
     Working for its return
          Walking onward toward reconnection
              To the ecosystem no living thing can escape

Praise God for the power of creation
From the small local habitats
To the grand biomes
That ebb and flow
According to the shifting
Of temperature, water, light, heat and cold

God’s creation is beautiful in its complexity
And its interconnection

Beautiful Creation in its complexity
   We are connected and interconnected

Praise for all God’s people
Praise all God's beings
     Who also praise and act
          And bring us closer
To the divine universal interconnection