A Sea of Wildflowers

In August the meadow at Flyer’s Field becomes a vast, deep, sea of wildflowers. Here is a 5 minute video tour of the meadow at its height.

Boot Boutwell Walk with the Trustees

Boot gave his first Mary Cummings Park walk for the Trustees on Sunday, January 24th. While it was a cold and blustery day, a hardy group joined Boot for another fascinating lesson in nature.

A January Sundown

The nice thing about sundown in the depth of winter is that it is over by 5pm so you can still go home and have dinner, if you have not frozen yourself.

Special Places

The winter issue of Special Places, the magazine of The Trustees, has just come out and includes an article about The Friends of Mary Cummings Park, with photos of our founders and current board members. The article also include a number of photos by Board member Jon Sachs – plus the cover photo.

Visits to Mary Cummings Park have increased enormously since The Trustees made it an official part of their portfolio. The park we all love is now giving peace of mind and enjoyment to more people than ever, and with The Trustees in place, the park’s future is safe from development.

You can download a PDF copy of this issue of Special Places here.

The “Gnome Homes”

There are many cute little holes in trees that you might think of as homes for little gnomes…

The Passing of Dave Cummings

On Monday, November 16, 2020, Dave Cummings passed away, just a few days after Veterans Day. Dave was one of the founders of The Friends of Mary Cummings Park. He worked hard to re-establish the trails and would often take his chain saw out there to cut trees that had fallen over the trails.

Here is a link to the Della Russo Funeral Home from which you can find a link to Dave’s obituary.

Dave was very proud of his time in Vietnam with the Navy SeaBees, and usually wore a SeaBees hat.

His last years were spent at the Bedford VA, fighting off the effects of the Parkinson’s Disease that he suspected was caused by exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Dave is a member of the greater Cummings family that included John and Mary Cummings. He is a descendent of a sibling of John Cummings.

(Dave’s brother Warren has been cutting the fields and mowing the landing strip for the model plane flyers for decades.)

Here is a video that we did with Dave at the Bedford VA when he was still in great shape and full of stories.

The Friends Honored by The Trustees

We were extremely pleased to be recognized by The Trustees as Volunteers of the Year at their recent (online) Annual Meeting.

Shown above are three of the founders of The Friends of Mary Cummings Park, the three people most responsible for saving this park: Steve Keleti, Cathy Moore, and Pat O’Reilly. Shown below the video are the current Board of Directors along with the founders.

The Trustees, who now manage Mary Cummings Park through a long-term agreement with The City of Boston, created a video for their annual meeting and the segment about our organization starts here at 20 minutes and 20 seconds in. (Supposed to start there automatically, but doesn’t always do that.)

 

Board of Friends of Mary Cummings Park

Here, in a photo by The Trustees, are the founders and current Board members of The Friends of Mary Cummings Park, from left to right: Pat O’Reilly, Jane Morse, Steve O’Leary (President), Ed Loturco, Dave Webb, Jon Sachs (standing), Steve Keleti, and Cath Moore. (Not shown is Board member Betsey Hughes.)

Because of the work of The Trustees, the future of Mary Cummings Park is looking good, and the sign that hangs at the park entrance on Blanchard Road is a dream come true for so many of us.

October 2020 Snow!

The pre-Halloween snow storm of 2020 leaf many still green trees wondering what was going on and made for many great photos with fall colors and snow.

Junk on Muller Road

One of our board members reports on two rather nasty trash incidents along Muller Road.

The first was seeing a truck driving along and the fellow in the passenger seat throwing used gallon paint cans out of the window, into the woods. There were 10 or more cans tossed. He was not able to catch a license plate number so he just went into the woods and retrieved the paint cans.

The second event was seeing a 10-wheeler truck park right on the road and the driver then taking a stove and small refrigerator from the back of the truck and then heaving them into the woods. Our board member interceded, including calling the police, and got the driver to get help from his headquarters to retrieve the stove and fridge, put them back in the truck and depart.

Mary Cummings Park, particularly along Muller Road, is seen by some as a garbage dump. We will continue to monitor this activity. It seems pretty remarkable that there are some people who see a woodland as nothing but a garbage dump, but that is how it is.

There is also constant tossing of cups, wrappers, bottles and such from cars, which our members take pains to clean up.

Because Mary Cummings Park is not Burlington town property, our Police have limited ability to deal with major trash dumping events, unless the property manager makes a formal complaint.

So our board and other park fans will simply continue to monitor the park for trash abuse and clean it up as it happens.