Northern Connecticut Land Trust

WORK PARTIES BACK IN FULL SWING 2009

Judy Snyder, Gail Manning and Martin Smith enjoy a day of comradery and work party accomplishments on March 15, 2009. Photo credit: Wes Smith.

2009 HIKE/WALK/PADDLING SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Click to Download: 2009 SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Join fellow members and friends for a wonderful year of hikes and jaunts.

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit” (Edward Abbey)

LAND TRUST AQUIRES OPEN SPACE IN TOLLAND

The Northern Connecticut Land Trust had a Merry Christmas indeed, as it received an 83.8 acre gift from Lee and Lamont Realty. Surrounding the future Kent South development in Tolland, CT, the land is rolling, well-wooded and criss-crossed by two streams. The new Land Trust property will be preserved as open space and will be open to the public for passive recreation. Richard Lee of the realty commented, "We hope future generations will enjoy the preservation of this beautiful parcel."

The Land Trust will mark the boundaries and undertake a management program as it becomes familiar with the acreage. In the future, hiking trails on this property may be linked with other protected land owned by the Town of Tolland.

The Northern Connecticut Land Trust, in its 21st year, seeks to preserve and protect open space and agricultural lands in the towns of Somers, Stafford, Vernon, Ellington, Enfield and East Windsor. With this acquisition, Tolland will be welcomed into the fold.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The day was cold but the company and scenery marvelous! A hardy group of hikers hiked McCann's and Whitaker's to take in the gorgeous scenery and stunning views of Shady Brook. (photo credit Wes Smith)

ANNUAL MEETING SEPTEMBER 21ST

The Annual Meeting of the NCLT was held on the evening of Sunday, September 21^stin the Somers Congregational Church (on Main Street across from the Town Hall). The highlight of the evening was a presentation by John Scheirer, Associate Professor of Communication at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield. His illustrated presentation was based on his new book, “Loop Year”. The book is a delightful account of his successful quest to hike the two mile ShadyBrookTrail on the McCann Family Farm every single day for one full year. An additional self imposed challenge was to write each day’s account with exactly 365 words.

Beetles Galore! By Jerry Stage (Photo credits: Natalie "Nanny" Audinot)

Patience and hope are worthy virtues. Sometimes they’re even rewarded. This certainly seems to be true for the biological control project initiated in 2005 by the NCLT’s Land Stewardship Committee to control the well established infestation of Purple Loosestrife in the Scantic Riparian Area (SRA), a prime wetland along the Scantic River in Somers.

Loosestrife and Beetles (Photo Credit: Natalie "Nanny" Audinot)

Purple Loosestrife is a serious invasive pest introduced over 200 years ago from Eurasia. Since then it has spread throughout the eastern parts of the USA. Though beautiful it crowds out native plants in wetlands and makes the sites useless for our native flora and fauna.

In June 2005 our beetle farming team raised and then released 8,000 or so leaf beetles in the genus Galerucella at six strategic locations in the SRA. Details of the project were published in the September 2005 issue (No. 15) of the Northern Connecticut Land Trust’s newsletter, “Landmark” (located under Resources on this site).

Alas, in 2006 there were no signs of the beetles and the loosestrife seemed to be thriving if not actually spreading. Since the beetles survive most of the late summer and all winter as adults in the roots of their host plants we suspected the torrential rains and flooding in October of 2005 killed them all off. After all, much of the site had been under as much as 5 feet of water for many weeks and lesser amounts for most of the winter and early spring.

No beetles could be found again in 2007 but an occasional plant showed feeding damage that appeared to have been caused by some chewing beetle. Just maybe Galerucella. In spite of that spark of hope I was sufficiently discouraged that I called Donna Ellis ( Loosestrife contact person from the UConn Extension service) to plan a second release the next year. That turned out to be unnecessary.

Recent visits to the site this June and July show BEETLES GALORE! It is hard to find a single plant anywhere on the site that doesn’t show at least some sign of beetle damage. Many plants are severely mutilated and stunted. It’s very difficult to know how many beetles are there but I’d guess they number in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. It is clear that in this case patience and hope paid off!

We do not expect the loosestrife to disappear altogether but rather to drop back into a more natural balance with the rest of the flora. It will be interesting to see how the composition of the flora in the affected area changes as that happens.

MAJOR EVENT HELD ON JUNE 22, 2008

"LOOP YEAR" Book Release Event was held on Sunday, June 22, 3:00 p.m at the McCann Family Farm in Somers, CT. Author and NCLT member John Sheirer gave the official release of his new book, Loop Year: 365 Days on the Trail. The book chronicles John's year-long project when he hiked the Blue Trail at McCann's every day for a year between May 17, 2005 and May 16, 2006. John discussed the book and read from Loop Year. For more information about Loop Year, visit www.johnsheirer.com