Mother Brook is a blog about the country's oldest canal, which connects the Charles and Neponset rivers via Dedham and Hyde Park.

Paul Keleher took in the Run of the Charles races today, including this 26-mile run.

Steve Sherlock is composing poems for each stop on the Franklin Line - in "sherku" (like haiku, but with two more syllables) - for example:

Some Dedhamites recently got all flustered by a rumor that alleged criminals from Roslindale's Washington-Beech housing project would be moved to their town (it was a false alarm). Now the Roslindale Transcript reports on a drug bust on Washington Street in West Roxbury: A Dedham man was arrested April 12 when Boston Police allegedly spotted him dealing drugs. They also arrested one of his alleged customers: A guy from Walpole. When are these suburban towns going to stop exporting their criminals to Boston?

Seems there's a rumor going around Dedham that when Roslindale's Washington-Beech housing project is torn down for renovations, the tenants would be moved en masse to that fair town, and you know what that means.

Didn't seem logical to me (why would Boston residents be forced to move to another town, wouldn't they then stop being Boston residents?), but I asked Lydia Agro, communications director for the Boston Housing Authority, which is coordinating the $100-million rehab. Her basic answer: No. Her longer answer follows:

We spotted this sign just before a downslope on River Street in Dedham yesterday while aimlessly driving around the town. Turns out a Jake brake is an engine-based truck brake that sounds like a machine gun going off.

Because I'm one of those annoying Pious drivers, when I get off 128 at Great Plain Avenue on the way home, I'll take the longer way to get to 109 (basically, stay straight at the church instead of veering left), because it's a great stretch for some pulse-and-gliding (well, that and I hate getting stuck at the lights down by the Twickenham dog-grooming place).

Today, though, traffic briefly came to a complete stop near the Animal Rescue League cemetery - a harem of turkeys (one tom and at least 13 females) needed to get to the other side of the road. Unlike their punk cousins in Brookline, these were mellow birds, who simply crossed the road, rather than trying to consume human flesh (and then, fortunately for me, there was just enough room between the road and a stone wall for me to pull in with my camera out).

And so there they foraged, outside somebody's chicken-wired yard. At one point, the tom wanted to impress the ladies, so he huffed and he puffed and he blew himself up to like twice his normal size.

Full-on view:

Joe Keohane somehow manages to survive the annual St. Patrick's Day political roasts in both Quincy and South Boston.

Inexplicably, however, he totally bypassed the Dedham roast, which was the only one where limbo dancing and hula-hooping were involved.

Maybe she was taken out of context - because otherwise a quote from Sen. Walsh in the Daily News Transcript might be enough to give her Boston constituents some pause.

In a story about an increase in state aid to cities and towns, the paper reports:

"Maintaining and increasing local aid, especially for the schools in Dedham, Norwood and Westwood, is my priority," said Sen. Marian Walsh, D - West Roxbury.

In addition to West Roxbury, Walsh also represents those three towns, along with Roslindale and Hyde Park.

The Cambridge Chronicle reports that Mr. Gobbles has been moved to Dedham after being hit by a car last month.

Mr. Gobbles had preened and pecked on the grounds of the Volpe Transportation Center since 2003. Unlike his man-eating cousins in Brookline, Mr. Gobbles never bothered anybody. Today, he has the run of the Animal Rescue League's 27-acre refuge in wildest Dedham.