Chestnut Blight

Chestnut trees were wiped out by a fungus many decades ago, but the same amazingly persistent roots keep resprouting, only to be attacked once again by the fungus as soon as they get an inch or two in diameter. They die back and resprout over and over. Here is a Chestnut sapling located on Dominick Trail, just north of Nells Rock Trail, that recently succumbed another round of the blight. There were still some brown leaves attached to the otherwise bare sapling, and the fungus had a fresh orange color.

Only a few inches away a much smaller Chestnut sapling, probably from the same root system, was untouched by the fungus. For now, anyway.

"Til We Meet Again"

Here's a mystery engraving along the Far Mill River off of Mill Street at the old dam near the sign kiosk and bench. XXX may stand for kisses, and "Til We Meet Again" was a very popular song in 1918. No idea what "RE IV" is, perhaps someone's initials.

Update 6/9/2009: A reader reports that a 20-yr-old committed suicide at that spot in 2004 and his friends commissioned the engraving. How sad.

Garlic Mustard Pesto

Garlic Mustard is an herb that was planted in America by Europeans for use in foods, but the plant has become highly invasive. The stuff grows everywhere, like dandelions. It especially likes roadways, but also grows in both wooded and open areas. The herb has a strong smell of garlic with a touch of onion, and there are plenty of recipes you can find online, but the most commonly recommended food is Garlic Mustard Pesto.

I decided to give it a whirl, fully expecting it to taste like crap, because stuff they say you can eat from the wild usually does. Dandelion greens, for example, I find simply revolting, but people have been eating them for ages.

This time around, however, I was amazed. The pesto was delicious, assuming you like garlic, especially spread over Triscuits, but like any pesto you can also put it on pasta or whatever. My teenage son and husband liked it. I took it to work and people loved it and wanted to know all about Garlic Mustard and where it can be picked.

I used almost the entire bag of Garlic Mustard in the above photo to make one batch of the recipe, which requires 3 packed cups of Garlic Mustard (it's more than you think) along with walnuts, olive oil, garlic, Parmesan Cheese and Romano Cheese, chopped up in the food processor. There are many Garlic Mustard Pesto recipes on the internet, but here is the one I used. Important tip: The pesto is better after sitting in the frig for a day.

Here's where I got my Garlic Mustard: Birchbank Trail, just in from the parking area on Birchbank Road. In the photo above, all the plants growing right along the trail are Garlic Mustard. Yes, there is an ordinance against picking plants in the open space but trust me, it's more than OK. You will be doing us all a favor by removing this invasive plant and you could be pulling it up for hours at Birchbank and there would still be lots more. In places it is smothering out Dutchman Breeches and Trillium, and that's just not right. And please, bare root the plant, but don't throw the remains on your mulch pile, or it'll take root. There are an infinitive number of other places Garlic Mustard grows (quite possibly in your backyard, for starters), but I don't recommend eating anything right along the roadway due to possible contamination of the soils with heavy metals.

CT Blue Blazed Trails

There are over 800 miles of official CFPA "Blue-Blazed" trails in Connecticut (sometimes also called "Blue-Dot" trails), shown on this map (click to enlarge). I'm surprised how often people refer to any one of these particular trails as "the blue trail" as if it didn't have a name and was no different than any other local trail. Would you refer to the Appalachian Trail as "the white trail?" These trails date back to the 1920's and 1930's, and many were created by the stimulous package of the 1930's as CCC projects. They tend to be regional trails that span more than one town. In Shelton and Monroe we have the Paugussett Trail (pronounced Pau-GUSS-ett), which originally ran from the Lake Zoar area to Roosevelt Forest in Stratford before it was cut off by the construction of Aspetuck Village and other projects. The Monroe East Village section of the Paugussett was originally part of the Pomperaug Trail, now limited to Southbury (Kettletown State Park) and Oxford.

So next time you're hiking on a blue trail, consider whether the trail is part our state Blue-Blazed system. If you're at Sleeping Giant, that's the Quinnipiac Trail. If you're hiking the trap rock ridges in central Connecticut, chances are you on the Metacomet or Mattabesett Trails. Excellent maps and descriptions of these trails are located in the Connecticut Walk Book (east and west editions) sold by CFPA through bookstores and their website. The trails are maintained by volunteers with CFPA, and when you purchase the books you are helping to support this great organization to maintain the trails.

One last note: More than half of the trail system is on private property with only a handshake agreement from the property owner. It is therefore critical that trail users stay on the trail and respect private property - no bikes, fires, camping, and no geocaches in private areas.

New Trail Companion

Sorry, I can't help it, I've just got to show you my new puppy and future trail partner. Here's Biscuit, a fox terrior bred to hunt down vermin to the death, next to my daughter's psycho guinea pig "Cookie", who I prefer to call "Miss Piggy". Our other guinea pig is much more sane and rightfully too afraid to go near the puppy (she would run away in panic, inviting a brisk chase). But Miss Piggy is far too grumpy and bossy to be intimidated. Instead, she turns to face the puppy and expresses her annoyance with a throaty sound reminisent of Marge Simpson.

Obviously I won't let Biscuit use the guinea pig as a chew toy, so with a measure of frustration she begins copying Miss Piggy by eating whatever Miss Piggy is eating, usually lettuce or grass. Then she eats the piggy's poo. Ewe. I going to make a long-shot attempt and teaching her to help me find letterboxes, in which case she'll be my box terrior ;-)

Industrial Turkey

Welcome to Connecticut. Wasn't it just 15 or 20 years ago that wild turkey were a real novelty and everyone was excited to see them? Now look at them, they're all over. Even in this industrial yard in Norwalk. This time of year I see them nearly every morning at Wells Hollow Farm on Bridgeport Avenue.

Rec Path Rock Stash

Rock Stashing is yet another treasure hunting game touted as the 'green' alternative to letterboxing and geocaching because no plastic tupperwares or ammo cases are left hidden in the woods. Instead, clues direct you to special rocks that have been placed in favorite locations. The rock may or may not have something painted on the underside. I've planted a Rock Stash - Letterbox hybrid, which means not only do you find an interesting rock, there will be a letterbox containing a hand-carved rubber stamp and logbook nearby. Please sign the logbook, preferably using your trailname and a rubber stamp. Note there is no ink in the letterbox. I recommend bring red and black markers for inking up - crayolas will work fine.

The rock you will be looking for is the one in my previous post about the Stb rock formation near Old Mine Park in Trumbull (see photo above). One side is coated with Pyrite, also called Fool's Gold. It came from the nearby corporate park in the 1990's when they were blasting during construction. You'll know you have the right rock if you look closely and see the word "Trumbull" on one side and a "T" on a white spot on the other.

Clues to the Rock Stash - Letterbox
Shelton Lakes Recreation Path and "Bridge-to-Bridge" route.
White vacant house at corner of Nell's Rock Road and Shelton Avenue, owned by the City.
Closest parking is at the white house, which leaves you 400 feet of walking.

The yellow-blazed path, south
Turning into the woods.
A long rock wall, 400 feet.
It ends.
Another begins.
Four steps along the new.
Resting at the "table."
Before you sit down to admire my rock,
Look under the table
And find my black box

Note: You can log your letterbox find at http://www.atlasquest.com/

Stb Rock Outcrops

A few weeks ago I was wondering about the unusual rocks along a stretch of the Paugussett Trail in Monroe, even before I read the CFPA trail description that identified an old silver mine in that very spot. I took a look at the USGS bedrock geology map (click to enlarge) and learned there is a rock formation called the Straits Schist Basal Member, abbreviated Stb on the map and shown in orange. The Stb formation is defined as a gray schist with amphibolite, marble and quartzite and is known for containing metals.

This is the same formation that pops up at Old Mine Park in Trumbull, location of a former Tungsten Mine. Back in the 1990's they were blasting nearby to build a corporate park and rock hounds were going in on the weekends to see what they could salvage of the metal-bearing rock (I collected a crate of rocks myself and will be using one for my first rock stash).

This photo is a close-up of one of the Trumbull rocks I collected in the 1990's at the corporate park blasting site. The face of the rock was coated with pyrite (fool's gold). Click to enlarge so you can see it better. The Stb formation has metals in it due to geothermal activity. Water came from magma carrying metals and dropped those metal into the surrounding country rock as it cooled. Theoretically, anywhere you see the Stb symbol on the geological map would be a place to look for metals such as copper, silver, gold, tungsten, etc. The metals might be elemental (and look like a metal) or they might be in the form of a mineral. Pyrite is a mineral composed of iron-sulfide.

The formation is also highly visible along the Paugussett Trail in Shelton in the north end of Indian Well State Park, just south of the aqueduct. All of these locations have enormous boulders with an unusual appearance, some creating caves (I recently heard in passing that the Indian cave in Monroe is "missing" but used to be the site of Indian soapstone quarrying. The entry collapsed and now people can't find it.) This photo shows one of many huge boulders on the Paugussett in Shelton. The aqueduct that cuts through the area has lots of interesting freshly broken rock if you are crazy enough to risk sliding down the hillside looking for them (guilty).

This photo shows the Stb formation in Monroe along the Paugussett at the silvermine. The mine is located in the East Village section of the trail where the trail descends into a hemlock ravine with the Boys Halfway River right next to the trail. I found some marble and possibly silver nearby (I didn't have a hand lens with me, but it sure looked like silver so I dropped it in a letterbox I was planting in the area).

Charles Island, Milford

What a blast we had walking the gravel bar out to Charles Island in Milford today. We timed it just right, arriving just as the pathway became exposed by the receding tide (an hour and 15 minutes before low tide). People get stranded out there all the time so it's important to arrive as the tide is still going out.

We were looking for our typical forms of "treasure" out there (which we found). We also saw lots of deer, brant, distinctive green serpentine boulders, and some interesting old fieldstone ruins. There are tales of buried treasure (Captain Kidd) and ghosts. In fact, we ran into an interesting fellow out there who told me all about the phenomena he has seen on the island.

The interior of the island is closed from May to September for nesting herons and egrets, although at low tide you can still do a nice loop along the shore of the island, as we did today. I picked up a nice rock for some "rock stashing" I plan on doing soon.

Bobby Returns

The bobcat at the end of English Lane in Shelton returned today, and this time Bridget Kelly was able to grab a better camera. What a beautiful creature!