Stories of Caring for Land
Stewardship means taking care of something that does not belong to you. It’s a word that is used by the land conservation community to mean taking care of protected land. This blog explores that idea a bit more broadly – telling the stories of people who take care of land.
You can find the stories (and other things) in the blog below. If you’d like to subscribe to the audio podcasts, put this feed in your podcatcher. If you’d rather, you can subscribe on iTunes (for free).Or, if you prefer watching photo slideshows, you can subscribe at You Tube.
Done! … for now …
Well, I finished all 7 podcasts. That was the goal for my master’s project. So, I think I’m going to graduate.
I’ve really enjoyed this project. I am trying to think about ways to keep it going, either by finding new ways to distribute content I’ve already created (like maybe on the radio or on other people’s websites) or to find a way to keep doing interviews and maybe getting paid a little bit for it. If anyone has any ideas about any of those things, please let me know.
In the meantime, here is my final paper. It might be of interest to someone who wants to do a similar project – it has a fairly extensive methods section and lists of resources. You might also enjoy it if you like reading musings about the role of storytelling in creating change.
Also, this is in the paper, but I wanted to say it here, too. Thanks to everyone who made this project possible. Thanks to the helpful advisers, thanks to the people I interviewed, and thanks to you for reading this blog!
Podcast 7 Riverland Farms
Rob Lynch and Meghan Arquin are young farmers who run Riverland Farm, an
Rob and Meghan
18-acre organic vegetable farm on the banks of the Connecticut River in Sunderland, MA. They run it as a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, which means that members buy shares before the season starts and come pick up vegetables every week. You can learn more about how to get a share, here. Will Sloan Anderson of Franklin Land Trust introduced me to these people – thanks, Will!
You can download the audio here or listen below:
Riverland Farm – Meghan Arquin and Rob Lynch (20 minutes):
You can watch it on YouTube – the audio is edited to be much shorter and it has lots of pretty pictures.
Things mentioned in the podcast:
- What they grow on the farm – see pretty pictures here.
- Their newsletters.
- Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) program.
- The history of farming in the Connecticut River Valley.
- Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA). Note: I had their name wrong in the original version of this post – thanks Tracie at CISA for correcting me!
- Food Bank Farm – a really innovative program. It’s a self-supporting CSA that gives half of the food it grows to a food bank.
- How to pop pocorn on the stove. But if you’re using really good popcorn like from Riverland farm, don’t use quite as much as in the recipe – or else your popcorn will be as crazy as mine!
Podcast 6 – Jim Caffrey
Jim Caffrey is the superintendent of the Windsor Management Unit of the Trustees of Reservations. I got to work with him when I did an internship with the Trustees in the summer of 2007. I always enjoyed talking to him, so he was one of the first people I contacted for this project.
I did this interview as a straight up podcast – no chapters, no YouTube. You can download it here or listen below:
Skiing at Notchview (from TTOR)
Jim Caffrey (22 minutes):
Jim talked about the Trustees of Reservations mission statement mission statement and history. It was founded by Charles Elliot, a landscape architect. He also talked more broadly about the he hilltowns of Western Massachusetts.
He talked about the Trustees’ ground breaking partnership with the Eagle Eye Institute and YouthBuild. He also talked about their forestry work as a member of the Mass Woodlands Coop.
Finally, he talked a lot about their different properties. They are all spectacular and well worth a visit. Links to them are below:
- Notchview is where Jim’s office is. It’s a large preserve with cross country skiing in the winter. If you visit the website, there is a picture of one of the ski shelters he talks about. If you’re planning a visit, you can check ski conditions here.
- Petticoat Hill was the Trustees’ first acquisition in the area, in 1909.
- Bryant Homestead is the boyhood home of William Cullen Bryant. Read his poetry here.
- Chesterfield Gorge – where hilltown families have the Gorge Apres Gorge the day after Thanksgiving.
- Glendale Falls
- Bear Swamp
- Chapel Brook
-
Chesterfield Gorge (from TTOR)
Podcast 5 – Phil Stanway
Phil Stanway at Red Wing Farm
On November 18, I drove to Chelmsford, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. In the parking lot of Jones Farm, I met Phil Stanway. Phil is a computer programmer in his day job, but he also spends 25 or more hours a week as the volunteer head of the Chelmsford Open Space Stewardship. I hopped in his truck and he gave me a whirlwind tour of the properties they manage. Andrea Freeman of the Putnam Conservation Institute suggested I contact Phil – thanks Andrea!
This was kind of a different interview for me, since it was in a moving truck and outside, and my field recorder was not always up to the task. That’s why it’s shorter than lot of the other podcasts. But I think it’s unique among them in really giving you a sense that you are there. You can download the audio here, or listen below.
The YouTube version had to be a bit shorter, because of their time limits. I omitted the last stop on the tour, which I didn’t have any pictures of anyway, because it was dark at that point.
The Chelsmford Open Space Stewardship group has an operating budget of $500 a year to manage 10 properties in town (most of the town’s Open Space). There are about 20 volunteer stewards, who among them put in about 6,000 hours a year. Phil said that the group never has meetings because they “don’t believe in them.” Instead, they keep track of everything on their excellent website, www.thechelmsfordian.com. If you’re interested in learning more about their group and their events or looking at over 5,000 pictures, be sure to check it out.
The sites we visited were:
- Red Wing Farm
- The Lewis property, which the town had recently acquired with Community Preservation Act Funds
- The Lime Quarry, which is Phil’s site
- Bartlett Park, in the center of town, which they manage for the Chelmsford Land Trust
We talked a lot about geocaching opportunities on their sites. I don’t know much about geocaching, but it’s a sport in which you use a GPS to find boxes hidden in the woods. This seems like a good place to learn more. The Chelsmford group seems to have a good idea in using it to bring more people to enjoy their properties.
Terry Blunt Chapter 6 – Hog Island
Hog Island, Virginia Coast Reserve (photo from TNC)
Terry Blunt tells the story of one of his early land protection project, which lead to the establishment of the Virginia Coast Reserve.
In this story, he mentions the Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy. The specific Island he protected, Hog Island, is now a Long Term Ecological Research Station.
Download here or listen below:
Interview is me and Terry Blunt. Music by David McMahon.
Terry Blunt on You Tube – 2
This is the same audio as the previous podcast, but it has pictures. Pictures are by me and Terry Blunt. Audio is me and Terry Blunt. Music is by David McMahon.
Terry Blunt – Chapter 5 – Hatfield Reservoir
In this story, we learn about how Terry Blunt saved Christmas (or at least a Christmas tree farm) and clean drinking water in the town of Hatfield, MA. Download here or listen below.
Terry Blunt Chapter 5 – Hatfield Reservoir (4 minutes):
Christmas tree farm in Hatfield
The interview is Terry Blunt and me, Caroline Raisler. The music is by David McMahon.
Terry Blunt Chapter 4 – Mount Tom
In this Chapter, Terry tells the story of protecting part of Mount Tom, which happens to be one of my favorite places to go hiking. Download here or listen below:
Terry Blunt Chapter 4 – Mount Tom (5 1/2 minutes):
As he says, the project involved many partners, and you can read about it in many places on the web.
- Department of Conservation and Recreation
- Holyoke Boys and Girls Club – their story of protecting Mount Tom.
Caroline on Mount Tom
The journal of the environmental educator who brings inner city kids to Mount Tom is here. I did an internship with the Trustees in the summer of 2007 and I got to go on one of those field trips to Mount Tom. It was amazing. The sense of wonder that these kids have on the mountain is great to see.
The interview is Terry Blunt and me, Caroline Raisler. The music is by David McMahon.
Terry Blunt Chapter 3
When I first came to the Connecticut River Valley in Western Massachusetts, I immediately fell in love with it because of the mountains. Terry Blunt not only shares my love for this place, but has transformed that love into a lifetime of work protecting what is beautiful about it. In this Chapter, he talks about how he’s done that.
Download it here or listen below:
Terry Blunt Chapter 3 (5 1/2 minutes):
View of mountain from valley (Terry Blunt)
Things he mentions:
- Connecticut River
- Historic Old Deerfield
- Connecticut River is on the American Rivers Designation List
- Mount Tom
- Mount Holyoke
- Mount Sugarloaf
- Glacial Lake Hitchock
- CT valley farmland – some more great pictures of it
The interview is Terry Blunt and me, Caroline Raisler. The music is by David McMahon.
Terry Blunt Chapter 2
Terry Blunt gives one of the most concise and articulate explanations I’ve heard of how land protection professionals think about land protection and do it. But what is near and dear to my heart in this podcast is how he talks about land protection is not the end. What happens after the land is protected – the day to day stewardship – is really important. It makes me really happy when people who have focused on land protection talk about the importance of stewardship.
Download here or listen below:
Terry Blunt Chapter 2 (5 minutes):
The interview is Terry Blunt and me, Caroline Raisler. The music is by David McMahon.
