My daughter had never been to Goose Pond in Keene so last Saturday we went and hiked around it. The pond is part of a five hundred acre wilderness area that isn’t that far from downtown Keene. Goose Pond was called Crystal Lake and / or Sylvan Lake in the early 1900s. The pond was artificially enlarged to 42 acres in 1865 so the town of Keene would have a water supply to fight fires with. Wooden pipe fed 48 hydrants by 1869 but the town stopped using the pond as a water supply in the 1930s, and in 1984 it was designated a wilderness area. The vast forest tract surrounding the pond has been left virtually untouched since the mid-1800s.
Goose pond is unusual because it has a wide trail that goes all the way around it.
You’ll notice that I didn’t say the pond had a good trail all the way around it. There are lots of roots, rocks and mud, so anyone coming here should wear good hiking shoes or boots. It’s tough on the legs and knees. Or maybe I’m just getting older.
The start of the trail gets quite a lot of sun in places and it’s enough to make blackberries bloom well. Wild blackberries are twice the size of raspberries and very flavorful.
Yellow hawkweed also bloomed along the trail. This plant is having a very good year; I’ve never seen it bloom so well. Each strap shaped, yellow “petal” on a yellow hawkweed flower head (Hieracium caespitosum) is actually a single, complete flower. The buds, stem, and leaves of the plant are all very hairy and the rosette of oval leaves at the base of the stem often turn deep purple in winter. The Ancient Greeks believed that hawks drank the sap of this plant to keep their eyesight sharp and so they named it hierax, which means hawk.
Northern bush honeysuckles (Diervilla lonicera) were showing their tubular, pale yellow flowers very early, I thought. This low growing shrub is interesting because of its orange inner bark. It isn’t a true honeysuckle, but gets its common name from its opposite leaves that resemble honeysuckles. It’s a pretty little thing that is native to eastern North America.
Blue flags (Iris versicolor) bloomed here and there at the edge of the water. I thought I might see a lot of other aquatics like pipewort or water lobelia blooming here but I think I might have been too early.
People come here to swim, fish, bike ride, kayak or simply hike as I do. Though I’ve seen people kayaking here you have to walk up some steep hills to get to the pond, so you get a good workout for your efforts. It might be called goose pond but I’ve never seen a goose here. On this day we heard a loon calling but we never did see it.
The trail gets darker as you go along because more pines and hemlocks keep it in shade. In places it also trails away from the pondside and gets very dark.
Indian cucumber root (Medeola virginiana) grew all along the trail in huge numbers like I’ve never seen. Like its common name implies, this plant’s small root looks and tastes a lot like a mini cucumber. It’s easy to identify because of its tiers of whorled leaves and unusual flowers. It likes to grow under trees in dappled light, probably getting no more than an hour or two of direct sunlight each day. Each flower will become a shiny, inedible dark purplish black berry.
There are many streams flowing down off the surrounding hills to the pond and in three spots there are bridges, but in many places you have to cross by hopping from stone to stone or simply walking through the water. I always wear good water proof hiking boots when I come here.
This bridge is chained to a nearby tree, not against theft but flooding. There has been severe flooding here in the past. It would be an awful lot of work hand carrying enough lumber to build a bridge all the way out here so I don’t blame them for not wanting to have it washed away and smashed on the rocks.
Royal fern (Osmunda spectabilis) is the only fern that grows on every temperate continent except Australia, which makes it one of the most widespread of all living species. They are also thought to be one of the oldest living things, with fossil records of the Osmundaceae family dating back over 300 million years. Individual plants are thought to be able to live 100 years or more. They like wet feet and grow along stream and river banks in low, damp areas. Another name for this fern is “flowering fern,” because someone once thought that the purple, fertile, fruiting fronds looked like bunches of flowers.
There, swimming among last year’s leaves on the pond bottom were many salamanders; more than I’ve ever seen at one time and in one place before. You can just see this one swimming underwater just to the left of center in this photo. Salamanders spend their lives near water because they lay their eggs in water, like all amphibians. When the eggs hatch, the larvae breathe with gills and swim. As they mature, they develop lungs for breathing air and go out onto the land, but will always try to stay near water.
What I think were chalk fronted corporal dragonflies flew all around us in sunny spots. This dragonfly gets its name from the chalky look of its white parts and the two bars near its head, which look like a US Army corporal’s insignia. It’s hard to see its wings in this photo because of the busy background.
A turtle sunned itself on a log. The day started out cool with a refreshing breeze but by this time it was starting to get warm on what the weathermen said would be an 80 degree day, so I thought the turtle would probably be plopping into the water soon.
Fringed sedge (Carex crinite) grew in wet spots along the trail, and sometimes right in the water. It’s a large sedge that grows in big, 2 foot tall clumps. I like its drooping habit and I’m not the only one, because it has become a popular garden plant. Many animals and waterfowl eat different parts of sedge plants, especially the seeds. Other names for this plant are drooping sedge and long-haired sedge.
In my teen years I used to visit many of the islands we have in our lakes using an easy to carry blow up raft. I even camped on many of them, so the island here in Goose pond always looks very inviting. I’d love to visit it someday but I doubt I still have the lung power to blow up one of those rafts. They used to get me dizzy and winded even when I was 16.
No matter if you choose to go clockwise or counter clockwise around the pond, you’ll eventually come to a stone in the middle of the trail that you’ll immediately know doesn’t belong here. I’ve never bben able to figure out what kind of rock it was made from but a lot of work went into making it square, with perfect 90 degree corners and very smooth faces. It’s about 5-6 inches on a side and dark colored like basalt which makes it even more of an enigma. It’s too short to be a fence post but in the 1800s people didn’t spend hours of their time working on something like this for a lark, so it was used for something. How it ended up partially buried in the trail is a mystery.
I was hoping to see a few mushrooms and a slime mold or two at the pond, but all I saw were some swamp beacons. Swamp beacons (Mitrula elegans) are interesting fungi that grow in water and I find them in seeps where water runs year round. They are classified as “amphibious fungi” and use a process called soft rot to decompose plant material in low-oxygen areas. Since they only decompose soft tissue they aren’t found on twigs or bark and this photo shows how they are growing out of saturated leaves. Another common name for swamp beacons is “matchstick fungus” and that’s exactly what they remind me of because they are just about the size of a wooden match. If you want to get shots of this fungus be prepared to get your knees wet. Mine always end up soaked.
When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing – just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park? ~Ralph Marston
Thanks for coming by.
Posted in Nature, Scenery / Landscapes, Wildflowers | Tagged Blackberries, Blue Flag Iris, Bush Honeysuckle, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Chalk Fronted Corporal Dragonfly, Fringed Sedge, Goose Pond, Indian Cucumber Root, Keene, Loon, Mushrooms, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Royal Fern, Salamanders, Summer Hiking, Summer Wildflowers, Swamp Beacons, Turtle, Yellow Hawkweed | 29 Comments
Such a beautiful pond and a really interesting trail it looks too. How good to be able to walk with your daughter!
I love the blue flags!
Thank you Clare, there’s a lot to see at the pond and it was nice to have someone to share it with. We were together again today and saw yellow flag iris, which are very rare in this area. I know you have them by the thousands, just like we do the blue flags.
Yes, the yellow flags are all about us at present and I love them too!
It’s really nice that you have that wild area so near by!
Thanks Montucky! Yes, it’s a popular spot and I see a lot of people using it.
I always thought raspberries were tastier than blackberries, but maybe I’ve had the wrong kind. Goose Pond is a wonderful asset for your area.
Blackberries are loaded with flavor. We used to do “blackberry shortcakes” instead of strawberry shortcakes.
Goose Pond looks like at nice place to walk. And your post takes us with on the walk. I was wondering about how far it is around Goose Lake, you mentioned it was enlarged to 42 acres. Thanks for posting.
I don’t know how far it is Chris. If you wewren’t stopping every 5 minutes to take a photo you could probably do it in under an hour. It usually takes me 2 hours or more, depending on what I see.
I know exactly what you mean! There is always something to stop and admire.
That is how I keep track of what -where -when I see certain plants, by taking pictures. I don’t need to write it down.
Glad you both enjoyed your walk.
Thanks Chris. It’s a wonder that I ever reach the end of a trail there’s so much to see!
“Or maybe I’m just getting older”…..could be. But a delightfully illustrated stroll all the same.
Thank you. According to my knees I’m definitely getting older, or at least less lubricated.
I Loved your quote and thought the whole area was beautiful even if the walk needed some care.
Thank you Susan. Believe it or not I’ve seen people riding bikes on that trail!
Very interesting place.
That stone is intriguing. Is all of what we see on the surface? I can’t tell. Did you look for signs of human manufacture?
On Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 4:10 AM New Hampshire Garden Solutions wrote:
> New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted: ” My daughter had never been to > Goose Pond in Keene so last Saturday we went and hiked around it. The pond > is part of a five hundred acre wilderness area that isn’t that far from > downtown Keene. Goose Pond was called Crystal Lake and / or Sylvan Lake i” >
Thank you Ron. One end of the stone is buried in the soil and it comes up at an angle right toward us in that photo, but I doubt it’s even three feet long.
It’s definately not a natural stone. You might find a single 90 degree corner in nature but I doubt you’d ever see 4 of them. I think it was a marker stone of some kind, possibly to mark a boundary like we would use a survey marker for today. I think it’s very old.
As always, I so enjoy reading your posts and always learn something new from what you share! I’m pretty sure your salamander is a red-spotted newt, or eastern newt. We have a lot of them in a couple of ponds in our area. They are the ones that spend their juvenile stage on land and are called red efts. We were camping in the Smokies the past few weeks and I noticed that concrete parking stops have been used to delineate a few of the campsite areas in the woods, especially near drop offs that I guess might be missed walking through the site at night. It made me think of you and those mystery stone/concrete curbs, which I know you’ve come across before, and here I see you’ve come across another. Thanks for another lovely walk through the woods!
Thank you Cheri. I couldn’t see that salamander well enough to try to identify it but I’m sure you’re right because I’ve found the red efts up there before.
This stone is very different from any other I’ve seen and I used to do a lot of stonework. It might have been some sort of marker at one time thogh.
Wow, that is interesting! I’m sure you are right in thinking that the stone is an old marker of sorts! We recently came across an old survey stone marking the TN/NC border in the GSMNP, too. I do wonder what the story behind your stone is! I loved reading about your camping out on those islands! It makes me think of the book, Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, which my boys and I read together last summer! They would be thrilled to do something like that! 🙂
Thanks Cheri. I haven’t heard of that book but camping on all the different islands was a lot of fun and I’m sure your boys would love it. There’s nothing quite like a night on an island!
Your excellent (as always) photographs make me realize I could spend some worthwhile time learning my sedges. I see them, enjoy photographing and drawing them, but I don’t think I can identify more than one or two! Thanks for the incentive 🙂
Thank you Quinn, it’s good to hear from you again. Some sedges are easy to identify but many are not. A good guide is the place to start but even with that you have to be willing to invest quite a bit of time.
How lovely to go hiking with your daughter. The picture of the tree roots indicate that some care is needed on this beautiful trail.
Thank you Laurie, it is fun to hike with my daughter, though I’m so used to hiking alone I sometimes forget she’s with me!
Tree roots are very common on our trails. Unfortunately they see very little maintenance.
Love the Indian cucumber root, not something we’ve seen in Ohio.
According to the USDA its westward movement stops at the Mississippi River, so it should grow there. It likes to grow in the woods in quite deep shade where the soil stays cool.
Allen, your posts are always filled with wonderful and interesting snippets of info! Are they all packed in your head or so you have to do research to share all these bits and pieces with us? Goose Pond is a real treasure with an interesting history, you’re lucky to have it.
Thank you Ginny. Yes, I do have to do a lot of research for the initial post but since I’ve done posts on Goose Pond before this one wasn’t research heavy. Some posts can take quite a while to put together while others almost write themselves.
My daughter loved Goose Pond!