The Cultural Easton
by Jonathan J Webster

Easton is known for its open spaces—but mostly in Upper Easton. Lower Easton, however, has its own little gem. The Wheeler Wildflower Preserve is one of the Aspetuck Land Trust’s newest properties. Located on Sport Hill Road, near the blinking light at Beers Road, it was preserved just last year in 2024. At just under an acre, it’s one of the smaller open spaces in town, so you won’t need a map to navigate. But that doesn’t make it any less worthy of your attention—or your presence.

Just over three and half miles as the crow flies from the Merritt Parkway, sits Randall’s Farm Preserve. A short hike on a well-maintained path leads to the back meadow. Back here, just seven hundred or so feet from Sport Hill Rd, you can lose yourself in the serene beauty of the preserved terrain.

If you’re lucky and the traffic cooperates, you’ll hear nothing. If you close your eyes for a moment, and then look at the sky, it suddenly seems much bigger, especially in the winter. This is Easton’s “Big Sky” country.

BRIDGEPORT — Three years ago city planners approved a new land use policy allowing construction of an office park at Remington Woods, 419 acres of forested property with a large lake.

That arrangement was less permissive than the then-existing regulation and also encouraged setting aside open space. Proponents deemed it a "compromise" in the face of calls for the entire site to be saved from redevelopment.

But this month the property's owner, Sporting Goods Properties Inc., a subsidiary of Corteva Agriscience of Delaware, gave the preservationists hope by announcing a new "reuse vision."

The Monroe Sun by Bill Bittar
MONROE, CT — A gap in a stonewall along 35 Old Newtown Road opens up to 65-acres of farmland that has been in the Benedict family for over 100 years. Rebecca Benedict Bottomley, who now lives in Massachusetts, remembers training and riding horses, and playing on the property with her brothers as children, roaming in the fields, and sledding down a steep hill in the wintertime.

(HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont today announced that his administration is awarding $14.5 million in state grants to aid in the purchase and protection of more than 2,626 acres of open space through 17 projects in 18 municipalities across Connecticut. Additionally, $343,015 in state grants are being awarded to create two new urban community green spaces in Stratford and Thomaston.

These funds are being provided through the state’s Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition Grant Program and the Urban Green and Community Gardens Grant Program, both of which are administered by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). They mark the largest round of open space protection awards – both by acreage protected and by dollars awarded – in more than a decade.

Paul Newman’s family was front and center last week, when Aspetuck Land Trust celebrated the 25th acquisition of Trout Brook Valley, at the Pequot Library.

Purchasing the 730 acre preserve in Easton for $11.3 million — and saving it in perpetuity — was an enormous effort, involving hundreds of people.

But, ALT says, during the long saga “there was no moment more pivotal than when 3 (Newman) daughters, Lissy, Clea, and Nell, discovered that the beautiful property they knew so well was going to become a luxury home development with an 18-hole golf course.”

Aspetuck Land Trust was proud to present the 2023 Haskins Lecture, an event that drew a crowd of 355 eager attendees on the evening of October 26th in the Trefz Forum at The Westport Library, featuring award-winning author Leila Philip, renowned for her bestseller, BEAVERLAND. The lecture, in partnership with The Westport Library and funded by the Caryl and Edna Haskins Fund, showcased the captivating history and ecological significance of beavers in shaping American history and preserving our environmental future.

BRIDGEPORT, CT. – Today, local community members, climate activists, and elected officials gathered to show love for Remington Woods, an urban forest in Fairfield County. Over 2,300 people have signed a Sierra Club Connecticut petition supporting protections for the much-loved nature site right in the heart of Bridgeport. Together, activists, local decision-makers, and other neighbors — including Aspetuck Land Trust, City of Bridgeport Office of Sustainability, Save the Sound and State Representative Joe Gresko — delivered the signatures to the office of Corteva, Remington Wood’s owner.

The 19 acres of the South Park property adds to the Aspetuck Land Trust's Green Corridor to protect land, wildlife, and water resources.

First Selectman Ken Kellogg announced that the town is working in collaboration with the Aspetuck Land Trust to preserve 65 acres as open space. The project is contingent upon grant fund applications and further municipal authorizations, including approval from voters at a town meeting.

Michelle Fracasso owns and operates Wells Hill Farm, the last working farm with livestock in Weston, a town famous for its farms. She said those farms, with those barns and silos you found so enticing when you first decided to move to Weston, aren't likely coming back.

"The problem in southern Fairfield County is that we've lost so much farmland because of the valuable real estate," Fracasso said.

But there's hope. Organizations like Aspetuck Land Trust, known for preserving local woodlands, are stepping up to help preserve farmlands as well.

August 9, 2023 | Weston Today

The Aspetuck Land Trust award for Native Landscape of the Year went to Weston resident Michelle Fracasso, hailing her planting of “hundreds of pollinator friendly plants and shrubs attracting bees, butterflies, and birds,” all free of pesticides.

A 11.5-acre parcel near Honey Hill Rd. was sold by Fratelli Zeta, LLC, to the Aspetuck Land Trust for $120,600. The Trust already owns significant property in the area, on both sides of the Wilton-Weston border.

The purchase is part of the Trust’s broader plan “to help preserve… one of the last significant forest block expanses in Fairfield County,” according to documents received by the Town of Wilton during the Trust’s efforts to pursue grant funding for a 10-acre purchase in 2021.

WESTPORT — Back in the 1700s colonists would travel the now wooded area known as the Bill Kutik Honey Hill Preserve along the Weston, Wilton line.

The open fields and livestock that filled the landscape there, possibly as late as the 1870s, are long gone but some signs of the agrarian past remain with stone walls peppered throughout the now 119-acre preserve overseen by the Aspetuck Land Trust.

Bob Kreitler’s decade-long volunteer effort to remove invasive species that threaten Aspetuck Land Trust properties has earned him an Aspetuck Land Trust Volunteer of the Year award.

Bob Kreitler is Aspetuck Land Trust’s Volunteer of the Year.

Kreitler formed a volunteer team of 89, known as the “accelerated invasive species control group,” that meets regularly for invasive species removal work sessions. The group has made noticeable progress on Trout Brook Valley trails previously overwhelmed by non-native species, according to the land trust. 

Aspetuck Land Trust’s mission to preserve Connecticut’s green spaces is turning its focus toward Bridgeport with the help of a state grant.

The land trust is one of 12 recipients to receive the Connecticut Department of Agriculture’s Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry Grant program grant to implement climate smart practices. Early this year, the state agencies awarded nearly $7 million in Climate Smart Agriculture & Forestry grants.

On Wednesday, March 29, Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz, Agriculture Commissioner Bryan P. Hurlburt, and DEEP Deputy Commissioner Mason Trumble concluded Climate Action Week with the announcement of grant recipients receiving nearly $7 million in funding through the Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry Grant program to implement climate smart practices. The announcement was made at Grower Direct Farms, Inc. in Somers, a subrecipient of the Connecticut Greenhouse Growers Association award totaling $1.75 million to reduce water consumption across six greenhouse operations in Connecticut.

EASTON — Another parcel of town-owned property will be set aside for conservation purposes after residents overwhelmingly voted in favor of doing so this week.

Residents voted 804 to 87 in favor of putting a conservation restriction on a 10.9-acre property on South Park Avenue. This comes after residents voted to sell a connected piece of land to the Aspetuck Land Trust in the spring. 

After three of us scrambled this week up a series of rocky ridges leading to a modest summit generously called Popp Mountain, we caught a distant glimpse of a glittering body of water.

This was the Saugatuck Reservoir, which spreads out over 880 heavily forested acres straddling the Fairfield County towns of Redding, Weston, and Easton.

Had Phil Plouffe, Andy Lynn and I climbed this hill a century ago, we would have gazed at Valley Forge, a village where the nation’s first iron plows once were manufactured. This tiny hamlet (not to be confused with the Revolutionary War encampment in Pennsylvania) had been settled by Welsh immigrants in 1760. Connecticut’s Valley Forge now lies some 100 feet underwater.

Today, the Trout Brook Valley preserve, owned and managed by the Aspetuck Land Trust, is a pristine swath of open space that features 13 miles of hiking trails. It also abuts the 162-acre Crow Hill and 117-acre Jump Hill preserves, crisscrossed by an additional 6.4 miles of footpaths.

I have been walking in Aspetuck Land Trust's (ALT) Newman Poses Preserve for the past eight years. After spending almost every day there during quarantine, I decided to officially become a land steward there, taking on the responsibilities of basic trail maintenance.

Come with me on a walk through the park as I try to preserve and protect these beautiful woods.

One of Westport’s hidden jewels – with acres of trails, teeming with native flowers, plants and wildlife – lies just off Compo Road South.

It’s not the Baron’s property. Most Westporters know that land, complete with a decaying house and overgrown paths. The town owns it, but for two decades has been unable to decide what to do with it.

The real hidden jewel is less than half a mile away, on the other side of the street. There, on Green Acre Lane, sits the Caryl and Edna Haskins Preserve.

Aspetuck Land Trust acquired 7.8 acres of open space at 38 Guinea Road in Monroe this month. The property, which has glacial features, a pond, streams and wetlands, is the first acquisition of town land since Aspetuck Land Trust (ALT) merged with the Monroe Land Trust last year.

Many people treasure childhood memories of catching fireflies on warm summer evenings. As the sun goes down, the insects emerge to light up the night.

If you’ve noticed this summer is especially colorful in Westport and thereabouts, you’re not alone. Fireflies appear abundant.

The state is focusing on purchasing and protecting more than 1,000 acres of open space through 15 projects in Connecticut communities, including Wilton, Redding and Weston.

Connecticut will be providing the Aspetuck Land Trust​ a grant of $398,125​ to preserve nearly 10 acres of land in Wilton. This will be the sixth acquisition by the Aspetuck Land Trust in the 705-acre contiguous forest known as the Weston/Wilton Forest Block.

EASTON — A town-owned piece of land on South Park Avenue will be sold to the Aspetuck Land Trust, after residents voted in support of the transaction in a referendum on Tuesday.

First Selectman David Bindelglass said it was great the sale was approved by residents, especially by such a large margin — with 1,058 residents voting in favor and 574 voting against.

The most recent United Nations climate report reminds us, once again, of what we already know: The steady rise in global temperature spells catastrophe. We must adapt to what cannot be undone and commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

In Genesis, God divides dark and night, earth and sea, then gives Adam the job of naming Eden’s creatures.

In Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1985 short story “She Unnames Them,” Eve, dissatisfied with the arbitrariness of the whole set-up, frees the birds and beasts from Adam’s labeling. Nobody really minds.

“Without names, we can’t communicate,” Prosek said at the Westport Library last week. “But it can create these separations.”

Prosek — acclaimed as an artist, writer and naturalist — gave the Caryl & Edna Haskins lecture for the Aspetuck Land Trust, which serves the towns of Westport, Weston, Easton, Fairfield and Monroe. It was the first time the land trust held a public event since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the library’s lecture space was nearly full for Prosek’s talk.

As rural landscapes in Connecticut have been increasingly transformed in recent decades by commercial and residential development, the state has seen a precipitous decline in native plants—335 species, or 19 percent, are on the state’s list of Endangered, Threatened, and Special Concern. A decline in bees and other pollinators that rely on these species has ensued.

James Prosek, who grew up in Easton, will give a talk about his art and the need to protect the beauty of our natural. Prosek’s talk “Trespassing and Conservation,” will be held on April 6 at 7 p.m. at the Westport Library Forum will draw attention to the beauty of our natural world while urging us to protect, conserve and connect our lands restoring a healthy ecosystem for all.