{"id":674,"date":"2018-07-16T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/?p=674"},"modified":"2018-07-14T16:55:03","modified_gmt":"2018-07-14T20:55:03","slug":"saturday-afternoon-at-trail-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/saturday-afternoon-at-trail-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday afternoon at Trail Wood"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK. This is mildly embarrassing. I moved to Connecticut in 1986, I was one of the co-founders of the Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series on Nature and the Environment<\/a> in 1996, I\u2019ve read A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm<\/em><\/a> at least half a dozen times, and Trail Wood<\/a> is less than 30 miles (40 minutes) from my home in Coventry, but it wasn\u2019t until Saturday that I finally visited. It won\u2019t be the last time. I expect to return once or twice a year to the Beaver Pond Trail, to cross Starfield and Firefly Meadow, and to visit the Summerhouse and Writing Cabin.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta<\/em>) photographed at Trail Wood<\/p><\/div>\n

A nice patch of black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta<\/em>) greeted me near the parking area, which is just a short walk from the house at Trail Brook. Rather than following Veery Lane, I turned left and followed the path through Firefly Meadow towards the small pond.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Edwin Way Teale’s writing cabin at Trail Wood<\/p><\/div>\n

The Writing Cabin is on the southwest shore of the pond. I turned right and followed the northeast shore to Summerhouse. From there I followed a path along the stone wall bordering Woodcock Pasture until it met the Shagbark Hickory Trail.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Spotted wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata<\/em>) photographed at Trail Wood<\/p><\/div>\n

I found spotted wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata<\/em>) along the Shagbark Hickory Trail , which I followed to the Old Colonial Road. From their I followed the Beaver Pond Trail to the edge of the pond.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Beaver Pond at Trail Wood<\/p><\/div>\n

After sitting for a while on a nice bench at the south end of the pond, I backtracked on the Beaver Pond Trail and followed the Fern Brook trail through Starfield back to the house and then to the parking area. The whole walk was less than a mile and a half, and the total elevation gain was only 55 feet. It was definitely an easy walk, not a hike, but it was very pleasant, and it was nice to spend time on the old farm where Teale spent so much of his time.<\/p>\n

So to anyone from UConn (or nearby) who reads this and hasn\u2019t been to Trail Wood yet, take a couple of hours some afternoon, drive to Hampton, and explore. Trail Wood is easy to find, and it\u2019s open from dawn to dusk. It\u2019s a gem in our own backyard. And if you haven’t read A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm<\/em>, do it now. You’ll enjoy your visit to Trail Wood even more if you do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK. This is mildly embarrassing. I moved to Connecticut in 1986, I was one of the co-founders of the Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series on Nature and the Environment in… Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-botany","category-environment","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":679,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}