Spring in the Blue Hills: Beavers, skunk cabbage and spicebush. What you can see, smell

QUINCY − Every so often the city's monthly Environmental Treasures program has a daytime walk on a Friday, popular with seniors and retirees. Last week's adventure showed how easy it can be to get away from it all in the Blue Hills.

The walk, called Signs of Spring, was led by volunteer Maura O'Gara, a Quincy resident who teaches in a cooperative nature school at Moose Hill Farm in Sharon. She works for the Trustees of Reservations in that role and on her days off, she brings a naturalist's curiosity and knowledge to the Quincy environmental walks, explaining things clearly in a fun way.

A dozen of us met in the parking area of Shea Memorial Skating Rink, at 651 Willard St. by the entrance to the Blue Hills Reservation St. Moritz loop trail.

'An exciting change' in the Blue Hills

Within two minutes, we had left the sounds of traffic behind, quietly following a pathway through the woods, coming to the St. Moritz Pond Loop.

"I brought you up here for a couple of reasons," Maura said. The first was to point out the fuzzy yellow nubs, or flowers, on the male pussy willows, one of the earliest flowering shrubs.

"They are a great source for early pollinators looking for nectar. You might see different insects on the flowers, interested in a good meal after the winter."

The other reason was "an exciting change" in the Blue Hills: beavers have found a new home on the far side of St. Moritz Pond.

At this time last year, Maura and her husband, Michael Pratt, were walking around the pond when they discovered a beaver lodge. On Friday, we looked across the pond and spotted it, a mound of mud and sticks.

'Unfurling in a great glory of green'

Further along, we came to a sunny area of Furnace Brook and colonies of skunk cabbage with wide green leaves. Just a few weeks ago, these leaves had started out as small spikes poking through the mud "and unfurled into this great glory of green," Maura said.

We had already been invited to close our eyes and listen to the running water, "another sign of spring." Now it was time for an "olfactory joy" experience.

Maura carefully pulled part of a leaf off a skunk cabbage plant and passed the leaf around so we could smell the aroma. The odor is attractive to insects, but most of the walkers quickly made faces of distaste. To many people, skunk cabbage smells like a skunk, or rotting, putrid meat, although some compare it to the smell of cabbage or mustard.

Next, an antidote: there was a yellow flowering spicebush by the trail. Maura scraped a few branches to release the gingery aroma and passed the twigs around. This time, smiles.

And now for some homemade maple syrup

The tour had been advertised as an opportunity to celebrate Earth Day early by exploring the "sights, sounds, smells, taste, and feel (including mud and wet trails) of spring."

True to form, at the last stop by a sugar maple tree along the brook, Maura pulled out some homemade maple syrup and invited everyone to dip popsicle sticks into the syrup for a taste. She and the children at her school had tapped local maple trees and boiled the sap to make the maple syrup.

On Sunday, Sally Owen, who founded and also leads the Environmental Treasures program, led the walk a second time.

To join the Quincy Park Department email list, and be notified of future free monthly Environmental Treasures tours, please email Sally Owen at sowen@quincyma.gov.

The story of one of the nation's first female surgeons

The Milton Senior Center recently offered a fascinating program about one of the nation's first female surgeons, Susan Dimock, who practiced in Boston in the 19th century.

Susan Wilson, of Waltham, a historian, photographer and author, presented an informative and entertaining slide show and talk about her new book, "Women and Children First. The Trailblazing Life of Susan Dimock, M.D." published by McFarland Books.

In the 1870s, Susan Dimock became well-known as a strong advocate for women and an innovator in American medicine. She was one of the first group of female physicians to provide professional health care to women and became well-known as a pioneering surgeon at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Roxbury. She also founded America’s first professional nursing school.

Living proof a woman could be competent, smart, lovely and kind

Raised in North Carolina, she was determined to become a physician from a young age, supported in that goal by her father and studied medicine at the University of Zurich before settling in Boston.

"In the 1870s, she was arguably the best-educated, most-skilled woman surgeon in the nation as well as living proof that a woman could be competent, smart, lovely, and kind – all in the same package," Wilson said.

She described how Dimock executed complex surgeries, and trained America's first professional nurses, ultimately inspiring a new generation of female surgeons. A prestigious Viennese medical professor, when asked for advice to aspiring young doctors, replied, "Make yourself to be like Miss Dimock."

An amazing life that ended tragically way too soon

The biography has been described as the first to give Susan Dimock her rightful place in history. Sadly, she died in a shipwreck in the Celtic Sea at age 28, while on vacation taking a break from her arduous schedule. She is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, where Wilson formed a group that replaced Dr. Dimock's decaying headstone there in 1995 (that story is near the end of the new book),

The Milton audience, which included several retired nurses, responded to Wilson's presentation throughout. When the talk ended, a man asked if Dimock had ever married. She did not, Wilson said, adding that in that era, it would have been impossible to have married and still have pursued her career.

The book is widely available online.

If you want to learn more, WCVB Channel 5's Chronicle program has this 5-minute video about Dimock on its website.

You can see Wilson's hour-long talk, which she also gave in March at the Massachusetts State Library at the State House, on the library's YouTube Channel.

Reach Sue Scheible at sscheible@patriotledger.com.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Blue Hills signs of spring walking tour