Funny how it goes from nothing to inspire writing to too busy doing to write…

Two new trees: a Serbian Spruce and a Sweetbay Magnolia, joined the collection today. We shall see how they do, hopefully well…the holes are good….

Stopping to enjoy the land is as important as working to maintain it. I had the pleasure today of managing to put aside the to-do list (in this case a list for the land trust of which I am a board member) and just enjoy a piece of property we manage. This property is something of a love/hate for the board. A gorgeous, big parcel with the potential to be a real showcase, it also protects an important bit of land. But, it has just about every problem that an old New England dairy farm/sand-gravel pit/abandoned property can have.

However, we collectively decided to simply enjoy the walk, nominally meant to determine a possible trail. The view was a good reason. One wood turtle, far from the stream, likely laying her eggs; numerous tree swallows; three phoebe nests (one in a muddy blown down tree root-ball); Ruby Crowned Kinglets; one Sharp-Shinned Hawk; one Broad-Winged Hawk; one Red Tail Hawk; a variety of other birds; sign of coyote, bobcat, porcupine; and (the crowning glory) two wonderfully well constructed, very active (one trail was actually wet) beaver dams. That the beavers were busy cutting down the alder, birch, and willow we had carefully cleared the invasive shrubs from two years running and that their dams made a several proposed river crossing rather problematic for our trail design….well, entirely worth it.

Remarkable what the Connecticut woods have!