By Lou Bacchiocchi, Land Stewardship Director

Spring is always a busy time on Aspetuck Land Trust’s preserves. The harsh winter weather and the wind and rain of early spring are not often kind to our trail systems. Clearing deadfalls, repairing boardwalks, recruiting and training volunteers and cultural activities in the Orchard and Blueberry Patch keep us very active. This year in particular has provided us with many additional challenges. Group training sessions had to be cancelled as well as some of our group volunteer activities. Pruning the blueberry bushes, which usually takes 20+ volunteers and four sessions to complete, had to be completed by the staff with very limited, socially distanced help. We have completed the task to the best of our ability, provided the plants with mulch and two applications of soybean meal fertilizer, and I am pleased to report that a very good crop of berries has set and is ripening as we speak. In normal years, berry picking usually begins right around the 4th of July, but 2020 has been anything but a normal year! It was warm early, then we had an extended cool period and plants seemed behind schedule. Our recent stretch of warm, sunny weather has been good to the plants and I suspect they are striving to get back on schedule. Keep a look out for our announcement on the beginning of berry picking, your hike in will be rewarded with a bountiful harvest of juicy berries.

The Covid-19 crisis has provided us with many unique challenges as well. With people out of work and school and the demand for outdoor recreation at a seemingly all-time high, our preserves in general and Trout Brook Valley in particular, experienced unprecedented levels of visitation.  Tasked with providing safe access to outdoor recreation amid pressures to close our preserves and limit parking access, ALT believes and member feedback has shown, that our efforts to remain open provided real value to our members. In my many conversations with visitors a common thread was how grateful they were to have this little piece of “normal” to hold on to. To accommodate this level of visitation and to provide for social distancing and the comfort of all our visitors we asked dog owners to leave their dogs at home during this crisis. We also delayed the beginning of mountain biking season. We greatly appreciate the cooperation of these two communities. We have since opened our trails to bikers, and I want to announce that we will begin a “phase 1” for dog walking in Trout Brook Valley on the blue/white trail. This phase 1 will be limited to the blue white trail only, on weekdays only, dogs on leash only, and we are asking that traffic travels one way to discourage oncoming encounters. While dogs are normally very social creatures, please cooperate with these rules and be sure to keep 6’ between you and your dog and other visitors. My goal with phase 1 is to show that dogs can safely be reintroduced into the mix in TBV, that on leash dogs can be properly socially distanced, and that individuals who do not feel comfortable can use other areas of the preserve for now. Once we have positive feedback from phase 1, I would feel comfortable moving to a phase 2 which would allow leashed dogs throughout the preserve and on our other preserves. I know that many do not agree with our conservative approach with regard to dogs in the preserve, but please cooperate with these rules knowing that if you do so we will be able to proceed to phase 2 that much sooner. Thank you and remember to support our efforts as generously as you can.

Lou Bacchiocchi

Land Stewardship Director