Posted By auntie on March 29, 2015

3.55 miles; charlestown, ri

this was hiked on march 24th. again with the long break between hikes! this time i actually have 2 good excuses.

excuse #1: remember the last post? yeah, the one just below this one, where i said i’d gotten some bad blisters? well, they were so bad that my dh freaked when he saw them and said i should go to the emergency room. but some judicious googling informed me that there was basically nothing an actual medical doctor could do unless they became infected. so i just bandaged them up and decided to take a few weeks off.

excuse #2: the annual trip to florida with my mom to see the red sox at spring training. this was TOTALLY worth it.

me and mom at jetblue park

as a result, it was 2 weeks ago that i did the damage to my heels, so i decided to test them out on a short-ish hike on ninigret.

weird thing… when you’re my age, and you sit your ass down in front of the computer and do nothing else for a few weeks, know what happens? something, as in, something bad happened to my right knee. while i was sitting.

a short, 3-plus mile hike had me in so much pain that i doubted i could finish. but finish i did, otherwise, you’d be reading news reports about the elderly hiker found dead on ninigret.

runway sign; foster cove loop

i just love these old runway signs. i started on the foster cove loop, which was about 50% snow-covered. i was discouraged, but i soldiered on.

cross-refuge trail

the cross-refuge trail, on the other hand, was actually mostly snow-free. such a relief!

owl pellet

whilst shambling along, came across this owl pellet (no, it’s not poop!). owl pellets are, okay, let me just save some time and quote from wikipedia:

A pellet, in ornithology, is the mass of undigested parts of a bird’s food that some bird species occasionally regurgitate. The contents of a bird’s pellet depend on its diet, but can include the exoskeletons of insects, indigestible plant matter, bones, fur, feathers, bills, claws, and teeth. In falconry, the pellet is called a casting.

i checked. this was just a mass of bones and fur. but it was huge! at least 8″ worth of pellet. that was some big old owl!

grassy point

i took a stroll along the grassy point trail today, which is something i don’t usually do. it’s really lovely, and worth the detour.

you can find ninigret in the hikefinder. trailhead, trail map (courtesy of the national wildlife service).

Categories: Rhode Island, Walks and Hikes
Tags: 2–5 miles, Charlestown RI, RI