Franklin Park, in too many pictures

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We walked the dogs in the weird landscape of Franklin Park yesterday.





What appears to be the sere grassland of Sub-saharan Africa in the dry season is actually a New England golf course in winter. Distant wildebeests are played here by the largest flocks of Canada geese I'd ever seen.



We aim for a copse of trees on a hill, but to get there we have to walk through (and keep the dogs from eating) millions upon millions of goose droppings (not pictured). I'm beginning to understand why golf course managers favor goose control measures.



We find the tidy ruins of a small castle made of Roxbury puddingstone. I haven't done the research, but I assume this was built as one of those FDR projects to keep Americans busy during the Great Depression.



A more recent repair in cement bears the marks of a local vandal.



Beautiful stone archways demand photographs.



Every time you see a picture of my wife's camera in use in this series, you can see what she was looking at here. (Her pictures look a lot like mine, but are better. Hers only suffer from having me in many of them.)



Franklin Park is one of Boston's largest parks.



The walkway passes under the road at this stone arch.



In a frozen swamp, Charlie and I came across a stone-paved hole.



We saw red-tailed hawks three different times. Alexis went to go photograph two perched together, but one flew away.



She was also enamored by this white pine.



One hill is fully forested with beech trees.



Scarboro pond is entirely frozen over. (See it in summer here.)





Apartments in the residential neighborhood poke up behind this large puddingstone boulder.



We encountered a bizarre arrangement of benches; why are they all in one place, rather than scattered throughout?



Huge old red oaks line the pathway back home.