Tomorrow will be a stormy day. That made the sunny skies and mild temperatures of today unavoidably tempting. Helaine, Doppler and I took off for Hamden’s longest, thinnest, most used town park.
I’ve heard this trail called everything. It’s the Linear Park, the Canal Line and Rail-to-Trail. Google Maps calls it the Farmington Canal Heritage Tail. Mostly it’s just “the trail.”
We picked up the trail at Brooksvale Park, a more traditional park with ball fields, playground equipment, a pond and open space. Oh–and animals.
Brooksvale Park has a menagerie of small farm animals. Around twenty years ago the USDA forced the town to build a fence around the fence that penned in the goats, sheep and ponies. Kids could no longer get close to the petting zoo wannabes.
I’m a liberal, but even I’ll admit big government took the fun out of this part of the park. Are you happy now bureaucrats?
We left the park crossed Brooksvale Avenue, then a small bridge and were on the trail. It is a one lane blacktop strip with woods and wetlands on either side.
Before the trail this was the right-of-way for the long defunct New Haven and Northampton Railroad. Earlier still it was the route of the Farmington Canal.
Our section of the trail is flat!
We walked north toward Cheshire.
The trail was loaded with bikers, skaters and walkers. Many like us had brought dogs along. Doppler made a few friends. There are more small dogs here than on Sleeping Giant.
We saw two spectacular small birds up in trees. They were black with orange accents around their shoulders… if birds had shoulders. My cellphone camera was unable to get close enough for a good look, but they were pretty. We weren’t the only ones to stop and gawk.
Later this spring the trail will gain a canopy of trees. Today it was still open to a mainly blue sky.
This is the best time of the year. This is the weather conducive to everything.
