I've written about it many times; I've been to parties and township meetings there; I've even tried to give blood there (the presence of stinkbugs freaked out the blood drive volunteers). But until Sunday I had never hiked at the 1,282-acre ChesLen Preserve.
We took advantage of the first nice day in what seemed like weeks to explore the preserve. The sun was bright and warm, and there was a gentle breeze, unlike the gales we've had all winter.
There were lots of other hikers there, many with their dogs. One fellow with a cattle dog told us it was the best dog he'd ever had: "I ask him to do something and he does it." A nice older couple was walking with a boisterous yellow lab, their grand-dog.
We spotted one brave kayaker at Corcoran's Bridge; I noticed he was wearing a Davey Tree shirt, so we figured he had been very busy working and needed a day on the water. (A permanent access for canoes is being installed on the downstream side of the bridge.)
We decided to take the three-mile-long Peter Hausmann Trail, which wound through farmland and passed Potter's Field (established 1800), where about 200 inmates of the former county poorhouse at Embreeville were buried. The simple, identical stones have only numbers, no names or dates, on them. "Known but to God, Respected by Us," reads the sign. The cemetery is a lovely, sunny spot, enclosed by a chain-link fence and with a large evergreen at each corner. Daffodils were poking their heads up between the grave markers.
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