Arcadia, Pratt Farm

Posted By on July 8, 2015

Arcadia, Pratt Farm

4.5 miles; exeter, ri

i decided to use a very old (1992) ken weber book to plan today’s hike. well, nearly a quarter century has gone by, and it didn’t really look much like the book described. weber talks about old farm buildings… um, nope. there are still some fields here, but i never really got the “prairie-like” feeling he described, either.

field

field

what fields there were here were filled with an impressive mix of wildflowers, though. this photo doesn’t do it justice. there was purple vetch, black-eyed susans, st. john’s wort, and yarrow that i recognized.

old barn foundation

old barn foundation

ken described an old barn that was built into the slope of a hill. i think this foundation is all that is left of that.

rudbeckia

rudbeckia

a little patch of black-eyed susans, or rudbeckia. fun fact about rudbeckia—it was named by linnaeus (inventor of latin binomials) himself in honor of his teacher, olof rudbeck the younger, at uppsala university in sweden in the late 1600’s. at least that’s what wikipedia tells me.

black raspberries

black raspberries

there were lots and lots of ripe black raspberries, which almost made up for the horrible weather; hot, humid, sweaty, buggy. can’t say i really enjoyed this hike, but hey, a hike is a hike, ammirite?

i have not added this hike to the hikefinder. i may do so in the future, i will update this post if and when i do. trailhead, no trail map. see more walks and rambles in rhode island by ken weber, published in 1992 by backcountry publications .

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