Earth Day Activities Draw Families to Mattera Cabin and Conservation Land in Reading

When the Borawski family arrived at the Mattera cabin on Main Street in Reading Saturday morning, under a very gray sky, mom Jeanne pointed to a rain barrel outside the front door.

“We ought to get one of these,” she said.

Inside, Ray and Amelia led their parents from exhibit to exhibit, all in some way about using water, land, electricity, even gas, wisely. They left with cups of seeds, planted in soil at the Reading Garden Club table. Ray said that was his favorite table.

That’s how the Borawskis and others, including a den of scouts, marked Earth Day.

“We aggressively recycle,” Jeanne Borawski told Patch as dad Michael and the children worked off some energy outside the cabin. They're also training the children, she said, to conserve water and electricity.

The displays inside and others outside the cabin demonstrated that “It’s not just our house rules,” Jeanne Borawski said.

“We’re trying to think about the planet and what we’re leaving our children,” she said.

The theme of the local Earth Day activities was “to celebrate nature and look to sustainability,” Ron D’Addario, a member of the town’s Climate Advisory Committee, told Patch.

The committee has marked Earth Day for five years, D’Addario said, usually at the Reading Municipal Light Department. Last year, they held a nature walk at Wood End, he said, along with a tree-planting. This year, they moved the event to the Mattera cabin, he said, to show it off. The cabin can be rented.

Three walks were held along a trail at the side of the cabin.

David Brabeck and his daughter, Caroline, who will celebrate her fifth birthday April 24, came to the site specifically for one of the trail walks.

“We think Reading has hidden jewels with all its conservation land,” Brabeck told Patch. He had visited the site earlier in the morning, he said – at 6 a.m. – and saw white-tailed deer 50 yards behind the cabin. Since they live near town forest, they go there a lot, he said.

Members of several town organizations, including the Trails Committee and Town Forest Committee, gathered outside the cabin and talked about projects they were working on, from building a boardwalk at the Kurchian Woods conservation land off Franklin Street to clearing trails in various town conservation sites. Volunteers are always welcome.

Flip through the photos attached to this post for a look at some of Saturday’s exhibits and activities.

For more information about the Mattera cabin and town conservation land, including trail maps of several parcels, and the Trails Committee and Town Forest Committee, go on the town's website and click on to boards and committees. Follow the link to the trail map library.