“… I come into the peace of wild things
who
do not tax their lives with forethought of grief …
For
a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
~ “The Peace of Wild Things”
~ Wendell Berry
~ born 1934
~ American novelist, poet, environmental
activist, cultural critic & farmer
I
came into the peace of wild things when I spotted the sweetest sight
of summer ~ two beautiful white-tailed deer fawns, twice the joy of seeing just
one! ~ showing affection and enjoying their first summer on an early August
evening along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through
Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township,
Pennsylvania.
The Ironton Railroad was a
shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore
and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted
to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20th
century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of
Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.
In 1996, Whitehall Township
purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the
Ironton Rail Trail.
