Walking the Berkshires

Litchfield Hills Greenprint Collaborative Website Launched

It has been a year in the making, but today our brand new website for the Litchfield Hills Greenprint Collaborative went live at www.litchfieldgreenprint.org.This will be the virtual home for the Collaborative and a major communications tool and resource for us and for those who care about conserving what makes our region so special.  There is an interractive map portal with lots of data specific to Northwest Connecticut and additional content that will be available to Greenprint members once I provide them with passwords.  We are having a soft launch during its shakedown cruise and will ramp up the publicity later next month.  Overall I am very pleased with this product.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

Connecticut's "Still Revolutionary" Brand: The First Salvo

With my 18th century interests and Connecticut residence, a tag line like "Still Revolutionary" certainly ought to appeal to me, but I am not the target audience of Connecticut's newly minted $27 million promotional campaign.  Watch the initial video and then we'll read the tea leaves together.

   So, does this speak to you?  Does it reach out to your heart and disposable income and say come to Connecticut?  Whose vision is this?

Well, it is Governor Malloy's, certainly, and the professional consulting firm hired to promote our state.  It seems to be directed toward at affluent professionals, vacationing families with children, cultural and heritage tourism, and particularly at successful African Americans.  I'll return to this last demographic shortly, and consider the curious choice to emphasize a storyline connecting an African American man to his Connecticut roots and an ancestor who served during the Revolution,  rather than hitching a ride on the Civil War Sesquicentennial which is totally absent from this video.

Actually, there is a great deal that is not emphasized in this two minute and seven second-long "Connecticut: Still Revolutionary " brand launch.  Western Connecticut is missing, for one thing, with its world class trout streams and outstanding outdoor recreation opportunities including national treasures like the Appalachian Trail.  Aside from someone falling backward off a bridge on a zip wire in slow motion - overwhelmingly the preferred camera speed for this promotion - the only way people in this ad seem to enjoy the outdoors is from their vehicles. 

Classic New England fall foliage and white steepled village greens just didn't make the cut. One would not get the impression from this video that Connecticut has any farms at all, except for wineries.  So much for Agra-tourism.  So much for bucolic landscapes and covered bridges. There is plenty in the video about the Connecticut River Valley and the Southeastern part of the state.  We have Mystic Seaport and Aquarium and the two big casinos on full view.  It was nice to see the Essex Steam Train and Hartford Symphony featured, but this still leaves a great deal of the state and what it has to offer out of view.

The "Still Revolutionary" motto implies that The Land of Steady Habits is full of disruptive technology, a place where invention and independence are both highly valued.  So where are the heirs to Samuel Colt, or P.T. Barnum, or David Bushnell (who was both a Revolutionary and an inventor)?  Making wine, or making bets at Foxwoods, maybe, but they are not in evidence in this initial promotion. And why is that nice white couple that shows up in their car at 1:32 seconds into the video using a paper map to "follow the sky" like it says in the promotional song?  Don't they have GPS?

If the creators of this campaign really wanted to make a strong connection between our state's Revolutionary past and our innovative present, all it required was a shot of the full-scale replica of Bushnell's American Turtle submarine at the Connecticut River Museum fading into a shot of a sub from General Dynamics putting out to sea.  Stick Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park in the sequence and the African American man in the video could make a direct connection to his Revolutionary forebears by viewing its Jordan Freeman plaque commemorating the heroics of one of its black patriot defenders. It just feels like another missed opportunity.

Let's examine the story arc of the African American couple in the video who come to Connecticut.  Their inspiration is apparently the discovery of an image in a book of a black soldier of the Revolution, with the inference that he is an ancestor.  Given the popularity of genealogy programs like Henry Louis Gates' "Finding Your Roots", this is a pretty good hook.  You can clearly see the soldier's cocked hat and hunting frock (and anachronistic mustache, too), though it is not clear whether the illustration is meant to be a photograph or a black and white reproduction of a painted or engraved portrait.  Given that daguerreotypes were not available before 1839, one hopes it is not the former.  Again, going with a contemporary photograph of a black soldier from the Civil War would have made the connection so much easier, but then there would be nothing in the film that directly references the American Revolution and the "Still Revolutionary" tag line.

The story continues as the couple get on their motorcycle (visually relaxing as they enjoy the freedom of Connecticut's roadways). Then the man dismounts, removes his helmet, and tries to orient himself.  He glimpses a quiet stream.  He sees the shade of his ancestor marching away through the forest (the only glimpse of outdoor recreation in the video that is truly Revolutionary).  He then goes to dinner at a casino to toast his homecoming. 

If he had had his moment of ancestral connection at Putnam Memorial Park, or Fort Griswold, I would have bought it.  If the choice had been to highlight the service of African Americans in the Civil War and the State's considerable contributions to the cause of Abolition - after all, we have the birthplaces both of Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown right here in western CT - I would have been more satisfied.  But then, it is not about me, or my interests. It is about that guy on his motorcycle and others like him and what will motivate them to come to relax and spend money in Connecticut.

I wonder whether the consultants and focus groups used for this promotion deliberately chose not to link to the Civil War for its target African American audience.  Being reminded of slavery is not the same as being reminded of freedom.  There were more than 300 men of color from Connecticut who fought during the Revolutionary War, the vast majority of them for long terms of service in the Continental Line.  For most of the war, they were part of integrated regiments, and this is what the video shows in its brief depiction of the ancestral soldier, marching away in single file behind two fellow white soldiers.  This is not part of the popular narrative of the Revolution, but neither is slavery.  

The message here is; "You are successful, a self made man, and you can be proud of the part your Connecticut ancestor played in winning our freedom." It is not a Revolutionary message, though it does put people of color back into the story of our nation's founding.  It does not put them in our extraordinary natural areas, but there may be a reason for that as well.  I once shared a plane ride with the poet Nikky Finney, who remarked that when she was growing up in rural South Carolina, her grandparents had an intimate knowledge of their farm that stopped short at the uncultivated woods beyond their fields.  Bad things could happen to you in there.  There were trees with strange fruit.

I would like to think that when the African American man in the promotion gets off his motorcycle, he is struck by the stillness of the woods and the movement of the brook and something else awakens inside him when he sees the ghost of his revolutionary ancestor.  A sense of belonging as well as continuity.  A connection to place as well as history.  An investment in what happens here going forward.  That would be a great outcome, for him and for Connecticut.

Nature's Garden in my Backyard

I cannot tell whether the fog that hangs in the air outside will burn off later today, or continue to mist through the trees and keep everything green and damp throughout the day.  My vegetable garden calls for my spade, and if I do not make the time to thoroughly work over that small patch of ground it with be thick with deep rooted weeds when I plant it in earnest a week or two from now.  Another bed of perrenial herbs and wildflowers is overrun by choke cherry suckers, and it may be that this year I am forced to destroy the garden to save it.  There is garlic mustard testing the boundaries of my modest backyard from beachheads it has established at the property lines.  Ignore that, and the choke cherry suckers will be but a modest inconvenience in comparison.

I love gardens in spring, however, especially the one that contains ephemeral wildflowers.  I have let the dog toothed violets and ramps seed and grow where they will, and watched with delight as new Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants appear in other parts of the flower bed from their parent.  There are Dutchmen's britches and bloodroot and both have started to find new niches amid the ferns.  There are trillium and wild geraniums and wild ginger, and even a clump of calcium-loving large yellow ladyslippers.  There is a new seedling growing this year, apart from the clump of many flowered stalks nearby, and I believe it has accomplished that most unusual feat for one of these orchids and actually germinated.

Later in the season the cardinal flowers and white turtleheads will rise above the fading green leaves of these plants as the early flowers have all gone to seed.  I'm not sure what blight did in my formerly vigorous stand of Giant Solomon's Seal but it has all but vanished where once it flourished.  I watch, and I weed, and I wonder, and still it is this garden that helps me mark the progress of Spring to early summer better even than the uncurling maple leaves, or the nesting wrens at the back of the yard.  It has taken a decade for this garden to assume its present shape, and with luck, and a bit of intervention when an invader makes a run at it, it will continue to evolve and change for many years to come.

Connecticut Cougar came from the West

As predicted, the cougar killed on a parkway in SW Connecticut came East from a population in South Dakota.  From the Black Hills to the Gold Coast was a trek of 1,500 miles, and along the way this same individual was detected in Minnesota and Wisconscin. 

"Some experts suspect this could be the same animal filmed by a trail camera in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, leading wildlife experts to map its likely path from the U.S. into Ontario Canada, circling the Great Lakes and eventually crossing back into New York and Connecticut."

This is the same route taken by the western Coyote on its move into the east.  It is the first wild mountain lion confirmed by the authorities in CT in 100 years.  There will be more.

Last Week's Nature's Notebook Column in the LJ

I wrote here in the Lakeville Journal about the Mountain Lion that was struck and killed by a car in Milford, CT, among other incipient arrivals in western New England.  Fair use excerpt:

"The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection is working on the standard hypothesis that this was an illegally held captive animal that somehow got loose, perhaps wandering over from New York, as the eastern mountain lion is officially extinct outside of the Florida panther subspecies.

Preliminary investigation of the specimen, however, confirmed that it had not been neutered or declawed and was a lean animal, which does not strengthen that hypothesis, so they are waiting for DNA tests.

Moose have been known to wander to Long Island Sound, but it is hard to imagine a viable population of cougars becoming established on Connecticut’s Gold Coast. The western mountain lion, however, visits backyard swimming pools and overlaps with encroaching development in the wildland/urban interface. They are expanding their ranges east and, like the coyote before them, it is only a matter of time before a few of these big cats wander into our region (if, indeed, they have not already done so).

Wildlife officials often say that if we had mountain lions here, there would be physical evidence from collisions with cars. There is one such example of that now, and it will be very interesting to learn whether this was truly someone’s pet or a long-ranging pioneer from Illinois and points west."

Midsummer's Eve with the Faeries at the Bottom of the Garden

Last night the twilight lingered long past 9:00.  I stepped outside into the warm evening air and instead of turning toward the street I headed into the backyard and out to the gardens that face the meadow.  It is not a large field, less than two acres on the assessor's map and further reduced by boundary incursions from various neighbors.  The rank grass and remnants of wild apple trees slope into wet meadow before reaching the neighbors on the far side.  It is flanked on the west and south by a screen of mature trees.  The elderly owner of the field lives in Kansas but grew up here, and she keeps it undeveloped because of the fringed gentian she remembers from her childhood.  There are very few of these flowers left in the field, but it is prime firefly habitat, and on Midsummer's Eve they were out in great profusion.

I have watched them in early summer ever since moving here in 2002.  Cold evenings dampen their glow, but warm nights with the mist rising send them wisping through the air, over the tassels of uncut grass and through the branches of the apple trees.  A few outliers may venture into the shadows of my garden but they avoid the lawns and other managed places, and when the field is cut their dance is done.  Every year I hope that the mower will be delayed, that the old man with the tractors who lays the grasses down to maintain the owner's claim will postpone his passes through the field so the fireflies will linger. 

This is a timed event, like sap rising in Spring and wild geese heading south in September.  My garden path ends at a wrought iron gate with nothing but magic and wonder in the rank meadow beyond.  I am loathe to leave when the faeries dance under the hazy stars.  Long may they return.

Species of Special Concern

My children know that when you go looking for Box Turtles, you will not find them, but when you live where they live, it often happens serendipitously.  This old tortoise was walking across the cut in the bank that leads to the beach at Windrock.  The Massachusetts Heritage and Endangered Species Program lists  the eastern box turtles as a species of Special Concern in the Commonwealth.  I sent in a record from our property a number of years ago, making the surrounding area priority habitat and ultimately strengthening the environmental significance of the open space protection efforts that have saved so much of Great Neck from the heavy development pressure that has affected the remaining woodlands and shoreline of this coastal community.  Windrock itself qualified for Chapter 61B, a "current use" open space tax abatement program,, based on the environmental condition of our property and we cited the presence of this species to help make that case..When our neighbor cleared a part of the woodlands between us to build a stately home, the order of conditions for the construction work mandated a turtle barrier around the build site.

We are delighted to be sharing this land with these turtles.  I have the same thrill when I spot one of their long necks peering above a patterned shell that I felt as a child.

Recent Lakeville Journal Stories with my Byline

I had a few pictures and a couple of pieces in the LJ recently.  My last Nature's Notebook column is readable here with free registration.

The blooms of bloodroot have already come and gone, to be replaced by trillium and columbine and wild geraniums as the season advances. Marsh marigolds quiver like yolks in the swampland, and in deep secret places the tips of yellow lady-slippers have emerged from the fens and will grace the next few weeks in golden glory.

I also wrote a story about HVA's River adventure as canoists and kayakers travelled in sections of for the entire length from source to Sound.

The morning air on Sunday was crisp and clean as 14 canoes and kayaks began another day of the Housatonic River Adventure.  Starting May 3, participants on this waterborne odyssey and those who have gathered with them along the route have celebrated the extraordinary work of local conservation groups to protect and care for the river.  

Organized by the Housatonic Valley Association to commemorate its 70th anniversary, the River Adventure is a journey by expert paddlers from the source of the Housatonic River in Massachusetts through the Northwest Corner to Long Island Sound. Events have taken place all along the route to highlight the largely positive changes that are happening within the watershed in response to the commitment of many groups and individuals.

 

A Day in Pictures on the Housatonic River, May 8th, 2011

1. Scott Heth of Sharon Audubon with a screech owl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.  Green Man from the Grumbling Gryphens Children's Theater

3.  Nic Osborn and Curtis Rand get ready for another day of paddling from Source to Sound.

4. Housatonic Valley Association River Adventure flotilla sets out at Bartholomew's Cobble on its way to Connecticut.

5. Kayaks and Canoes passing undfer the Bridge on Ramapo Rd. in Ashley Falls, MA.

Earth Day with Right Whales

There are fewer than 450 North Atlantic right whales living today.  Nearly 100 of them are feeding off the tip of Cape Cod this week, and the children and I went out looking for them.  Off Race Point we joined scores of people gazing out at the twin spouts and rolling flukes of half a dozen whales about half a mile from shore.  over at Herring Cove in the lee of the dunes we saw a dozen or so more, lifting their tails and gorging on the zooplankton that has brought them to this place in (modern) record numbers.

I had never seen a right whale before today.  I have watched finbacks and minkes, humpbacks and pilotfish, and once in Puget Sound saw a pod of orca swimming in procession past San Juan Island and another time a beluga whale in the Cape Cod Canal.  Never before had I seen this rare and wonderful giant, let alone nearly a score of them, and right off the beach.  I could have watched them all afternoon, and wityh binoclears and telescope they seemed very close indeed.

My children were very interested in the whales, but also in shells and sand and the feel of the sun on their bare pink toes.  There were gannets and mergansers and sandpipers darting, and all along the horizon a backdrop of whales to crown a magical Earth Day.  If you look closely at this picture, you will see the telltale Vee of a right whale spout far beyond the children at play.