The Natural Resources Trust of Easton offers not only short hiking/walking paths along pastoral fields and woods, but also an opportunity to make friends with the resident chickens, sheep, and bull. Admission is free.
“BAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH.”
He was at it again. Benny was making weird animal sounds for no apparent reason. Experience told me that if I didn’t find a sheep for him to “Baaaaah” at, he would keep blaring this racket all over the house for the next week.
So, needless to say, I went on a search to find a public place with sheep so that Benny could meet some new friends and get this out of his system.
I came across the Natural Resources Trust of Easton. And, they have a sheep pasture!
“Easton…” I thought. Now here’s a town that I don’t know much about, so that could only mean one thing: Time to go on a local adventure! Without further delay, we hopped into the car and headed down I-495.
The Sheep Pasture
The first sight we saw was the Sheep Pasture. Benny jumped out the car, and of course, he started “Baaahhhhhing” right away. This was turning heads, and it was a bit embarrassing. I shooed him along.
“I don’t see any sheep!” he said.
Hm, I thought. “Let’s keep walking around; there have to be some sheep here,” I replied to my annoying little bear friend.
Come to find out, the sheep weren’t in the pasture. Thankfully, Benny was soon distracted by an odd tree that had grown through a rock. Yes, you read that right, through a rock.
“You won’t hear this tree complaining how hard its life has been,” I told Benny.
“Of course not, Bob…it’s a tree. Trees don’t talk.”
Some things are just lost on him.
Check out the list of other local outdoor places we’ve been to at the end of this post!
Walking Trails
We continued our adventure at the Natural Resources Trust of Easton by traveling along the walking trails. Benny still let out the occasional “Baaahhhh,” but thankfully his noises were becoming more intermittent as our hike went on.
We went by another field and a stream. Benny saw a frog and wanted to jump into the stream after it, but I grabbed his shirt just in time.
Then, he saw a bunny! And this bunny actually stopped and stared at Benny for at least 10 minutes before it ran away. For frequent readers of the blog, you’ll know that Benny has had a hard time making fellow animal friends at the Providence Museum of Natural History and at Lawrence Island in Bourne, so this moment was nothing short of extraordinary.
Discoveries along the way
We came across Rhododendron Trail. Staying true to its name, there were many rhododendron bushes along the way. We came a bit earlier in the spring, so we didn’t quite catch the full beauty of this trail in our photos. We did, however, see a lot of flowers.
Benny asked again about the sheep, and I told him that we were still looking for them. He was about to ask another question, but then saw a sign that said, “Whale Rock Trail.” He ran down it.
“I want to see a whale!” he screamed.
“Benny, there aren’t any whales in the middle of the woo….oh, never mind.” I gave up. If he’s excited about seeing a whale, who am I to burst his bubble?
“I found the whale!” Benny had found the Whale Rock, and, of course, wanted a picture with it as proof that he did indeed find the whale in the woods. Discovering exciting places wasn’t quite over.
Walking back to the Rhododendron Trail, Benny started asking, “Bob, are we going to see any shee…HEY, IT’S A TEE-PEE!”
He rushed into an area that had a cluster of three tee-pees. He dashed around all three of them, inspecting them as he ran.
“They’re real!”
Of course, it was picture time yet again.
“Say TEE-PEE!” I said as I took his picture.
Note: Neither Benny nor myself intend any disrespect if we used the wrong term for this structure.
Animals!
We heard something cluck in the distance.
Cluck. Cluck. Cluck.
“Do sheep cluck?” Benny asked, getting his hopes up.
“No, Benny, but chickens do.”
We saw a couple of chickens strutting around their chicken coops. Benny went to say hi.
“Cluck!” he said, and, wouldn’t you know, the chickens didn’t run away! What a great day Benny was having making animal friends.
It looked like the chickens thought we had food, which is why they were so friendly, but I didn’t tell Benny that. I figured I’d let him enjoy the moment. Here he was, finally making animal friends. You just don’t ruin a moment like that.
Here they are!
We knew that if we had just run into chickens that the sheep couldn’t be far away. Benny started up his “baaahhhing” again, which was beginning to draw more attention to us.
At one point, Benny stopped and said, “Did you hear that? Someone responded to my ‘bah!'” He took off, rushing towards where he thought the response came from.
“Here they are! Here are the sheep! BAAAAHHH!”
Finally, I thought. Now he can stop bah-ing. Boy, was I wrong. He continued to bah, and the sheep baaahhhed right back at him. They baaahhhed at each other for a good five minutes, during which I was sitting down at a nearby picnic table pretending that I didn’t know Benny.
Benny then noticed that there was bull. He went up to the bull and mooed. The bull snorted back, but that enough to satisfy Benny. Two rams nearby looked at Benny and continued to chew on whatever it is that rams chew on.
We stayed around the animals for about 30 minutes. Benny enjoyed watching the sheep graze. An occasional “bah” was let out by the sheep and Benny.
“What a great day!” Benny said as we walked back towards the car.
We ended our adventure with one last stop near the parking lot: Dog Rock. It’s a lot like Whale Rock, except that it’s bigger and looks like, well, a dog.
“There are so many animals here!” Benny exclaimed.
“I’m glad you had fun,” I told Benny. “Were you able to get the bah-ing out of your system?”
Benny buckled up slowly, thinking about how to respond to my question. He looked at me, grinning.
“Oink!” he said.
“Oink! Oink! Oink! Oink!”
It’s going to be a long week.
For more information on the Natural Resources Trust of Easton, check out their website.
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Find New England Travel Guides and Books. This is an affiliate link, and we may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
It seems like a nice place to visit with many things to see. I think Benny really enjoyed himself!! I love the dog rock.
He did have fun! Especially with the sheep.