Protecting Land and Preserving Heritage. Forever.
I recently had a conversation with our 3-year-old about biodiversity. This was after hearing, as we were driving to school, a story about how the United Nations Global Biodiversity Targets set in 2010 had been almost entirely missed by the 2020 summit. [Me]: We need to save species. Help mother nature so we can save […]
Why would a reasonable person want to spend spare time clearing trails, fighting a battle against invasive species or installing kiosks? Why would a person work as a steward, maintaining properties and dealing with occasional paperwork? Why in the world would a reasonable person agree to volunteer time, energy and experience to help govern a […]
Alluring golden light glints through the forest ahead, inviting us up on the open ridge alongside the improbable, imposing glacial erratic. Long before Joshua’s Trust made Wolf Rock our first conservation area purchase in 1971, Mansfield residents would picnic on this overlook next to the locally famous boulder. The easy trail, though it has probably […]
If you have ever seen the Joshua’s Trust boundary medallions around, you may have noticed that some are a little different. Medallions that the one pictured here, indicate that the property is a conservation easement. These are managed very differently than the properties with trails. A conservation easement is a deed restriction that a landowner […]
With all of us stuck at home on Friday evenings, there is no better way to unwind from the week than to relax on a warm night watching our volant, nocturnal friends fluttering in the sky. Yes, you guessed it, I’m talking about our backyard bats! When I tell folks that I study bats, many […]
We often think of planting habitat for pollinators in the springtime. However, there are some things we can do to help feed them through late fall. Natural areas are full of berries, seeds, but flowers stop blooming and the food source for pollinators quickly become scarce. Maintain a garden that blooms from early spring to […]
Even tumbling through its ravine Tinkerville Brook makes barely a gurgle today. The stream is low and slow, but my educated fingertips tell me its temperature would still register below 68F. As it drops off steeply toward Bissonette Pond, the overstory is all hemlocks, and root-spreading mountain laurel is plentiful. It’s dark here, and a […]
Last week I went out on my first ever trail crew with Joshua’s Trust. Usually I’m on the more administrative side of things, but I wanted to get out on the field and see what our volunteers and stewardship staff do every week. There were only 3 of us out on the trail crew, myself, […]
The boundary crew recently found a fence line of antique barbed wire (circa 1880’s) along the north-west boundary of the Trust’s Mason’s Mill Site. These things are sometimes important as, lacking any other evidence, and given an 1880’s deed description that has been carried forward calling for a wire fence where the boundary would have […]
Bernard Church Woods was donated to Joshua’s Trust in 1993. This 37 acre parcel is a combination of upland woods, wetlands and agricultural land (hay and corn fields). The parcel was a part of a larger 90 acre piece which was purchased by Clifton Church in 1892 from Rev. Francis Williams. Bernard Church was born […]
