DotBike will be out in force tomorrow afternoon measuring paths in Franklin Park to help convince the Parks Department to allow bikes back in.

The Franklin Park Coalition hosts a tasty tour of Franklin Park this weekend:

Join us this Sunday, May 3rd at 4:00 pm for the popular Weeds as Feed Edible Plants walk in Franklin Park. Learn what can heal you and what you can eat. Believe it or not, spring shoots of the incredibly invasive, Japanese Knotweed, are delicious when cooked into a rhubarb-like compote (and baked with a brown sugar topping!) Bring a trowel and bag for harvesting; there'll be a treat to sample. Led by local naturalist and FPC member, Pamela Kristan. Meet at the Williams Street Entrance to the park along Forest Hills Street.

Earlier:
How Japanese knotweed saved the life of a Franklin Park Zoo giraffe.

Jef Taylor reports he spotted an opossum yesterday in Franklin Park:

... These marsupials, having worked their way up from South America only a couple million years ago, are ill-equipped for New England winters. Their hairless tails and ears are frequently frostbitten, and you can tell an older individual (one that has survived at least one winter, and the oldest will only survive about three) by its truncated extremities. If it weren't for their ludicrous litter size and relatively young sexual maturity, they wouldn't make it here. ...

Earlier:
I still haven't fully recovered from my 2006 'possum trash incident.

Who'da thunk it, that all the snow would be melting on Feb. 7, the same day of the planned snowcapades at Franklin Park? Still, Liam reports there was enough snow left for participants to have a blast, sledding and snowman building. With photos.

That would be Jef Taylor holding the wolf spider he'd just found in Franklin Park:

... This spider probably found paltry hunting out there, and moved toward the building, with it's year-round warmth and year round source of delicious crickets, cockroaches, woodlice, and earwigs. When I found him (his large palps and skinny abdomen suggest he is a male) he had fallen on hard times. He was sluggish, and after some handling began to curl his legs toward his underside in the classic spider death pose. Hopefully his offspring are out there in the warmth of decomposing leaves, snug in an egg-case the female is carrying ...

It's interesting what can pop straight up out of the ground in Franklin Park.

Boston Police report finding a man with life-threatening gunshot wounds at Playstead and Pierpont roads in Franklin Park around 1:20 a.m., Saturday.

They also report they're looking for a damaged 1999 Ford Taurus, Mass. plates 5021-RK in connection with the incident:

City attorneys are rooting around Inspectional Services Department documents to see if the department went too far in approving expansion at the Bicon building off the Emerald Necklace, the Jamaica Plain Gazette reports.

Lyss, who is both a Bicon patient and a nearby resident, doesn't get the root cause of opposition to the building:

I understand the desire to keep Boston's neighborhoods leafy and keep them from getting overrun by rampant, soulless development. Let's be realistic here - it's not in a park in the proper sense - it's not surrounded by parkland in the traditional sense (ex: Tavern on the Green in Central Park). It's on a high-traffic rotary that isn't too attractive itself, save for the leafy entrance to Franklin Park.

Mark cracks the mystery of the location of a long-abandoned reservoir in the park.

After several months living near the park, Hondo reports:

We have lived here for the entire summer, and have been walking in this part of Franklin Park for close to a year now. We currently walk in the park two times a day.

Would we walk in Franklin Park at night? No. But, we wouldn't walk in the Commons at night either. Do we feel comfortable and safe walking during the day? Yes. ...