Thoreau lake at Blendon Woods

Our family has a soft spot for Henry D. Thoreau, the New England author whose books have inspired the love of nature in many of us.

Walden Pond in Massachusetts, as I am sure most of you are familiar with (at least as a title of a book), is a special place to our family. Both my husband and I went to schools not too far from this infamous pond. Because of that, we have many fond memories of swimming across the pond with dear friends, visiting it during all the four seasons, taking our children there to make their own memories.

Best of all, both of our children learned how to swim at Walden, in the sandy, shallow end of the pond. How cool is that?



And so when we saw that there is a pond named after our beloved author who spent a whole lot of time by one of our favorite places, we had to check it out (and I am naively assuming that the pond was named after the author...I could be wrong!). It sits in the middle of Walden Waterfowl Refuge at Blendon Woods Metro Park.

Yesterday's spring like weather was perfect for a little outing. The sun was out, the temperature hovered around 60 degrees, birds were chirping wildly.



Thoreau's lake is only 0.3 miles from the nature center at Blendon Woods - an easy walk on a paved path that leads visitors to two separate viewing areas. These hide-outs allow us to watch the wildlife in and around the pond. There were several kinds of birds there yesterday: ducks, geese, even a white swan.

I can only imagine how lovely Thoreau's lake will be in the spring time with vegetation bursting out of dormancy. It's not far away now... I think we can all feel it in the air.

BLENDON WOODS
4265 E. Dublin-Granville Road
Westerville, OH 43081