Mother Brook, Dedham

[urbpan]

Just down the street from our new house is one of two standing buildings that used to be mills on Mother Brook. This one is now a condominium complex.




Looking the other way you can see the East Dedham plaza, where our local Chinese restaurant, liquor store, and convenience/drug store are. The rock in the foreground is covered with rat droppings for some reason I don't quite understand. It isn't great rat habitat. Perhaps they are muskrat droppings, but I don't think so.


Nearby I found a severed deer's leg! Neat.


Also a human skull made of plaster, complete with snake coming out of its mouth.


One of the three existing dams on Mother Brook is here by the old mill building condos. Mother Brook is thought to be the first man-made canal in the United States, but there is no plaque or historical information anywhere to be found. Mother Brook was dug between the Charles (by Cutler Park, where the river is very slow) and a tributary of the Neponset. Creation of the canal made water move from the Charles down to the Neponset fast enough for Dedham to have some river-powered industry.


The surface is deceptively still.


The southern end of our neighborhood ends at the Brook. We discovered today that the brook winds around the east side of our neighborhood, behind the Fairview Cemetery, but that will be another post, maybe tomorrow.

Comments

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly!

I expect the rest of the deer is inside one or more coyotes etc.