Our heartfelt thanks to Gail McPeek, former Board member and longtime dedicated volunteer, for putting together the wonderful Nature Poetry Walk at the Etna Library this summer! The Poetry Walk has been removed for fall mowing of the Hayes Farm Park, but we know future StoryWalks will be shared in that wonderful space. Thanks to Barbara Prince at the Etna Library for coordinating this with Gail!
Join the Town of Hanover and the Hanover Conservancy this fall for a limited series of guided hikes at the future Mink Brook Community Forest on Greensboro Road. Hikes will be offered every Tuesday between September 15th and October 13th, with rain dates on Thursdays. Strenuous, off-trail hikes will alternate to the north and south parcels each week at 9 a.m., with a gentle meadow walk every week at noon.
Note: No public access is permitted outside of the scheduled guided walks.
Pre-registration required; group size limited to 10 people (leader plus 9).
NEW! Watch the May 27th, 2020 recording of a Zoom informational meeting on the Mink Brook Community Forest project. The call was led by JT Horn, Senior Project Manager for the Trust for Public Land and Rob Houseman, Planning Director for the Town of Hanover.
The bears are back! Bring in your birdfeeders, secure garbage and compost, and keep your grills clean to prevent negative bear-human interactions.
Watch Ben Kilham’s full presentation on living with bears, thanks to our local Community Access TV crew. Find out more about Ben’s work at kilhambearcenter.org.
Earth Day reminds us to be grateful for Susan Harper, a dedicated volunteer and Secretary of our Board of Directors from 2003-2008, who recently passed away. She really made things happen in Hanover, especially at the Balch Hill Natural Area, where she started the wonderful tradition of Kite Day, when families enjoy the views and spring breezes on the open summit. Susan’s family has asked that gifts in her memory be made to the Conservancy; we are dedicating them to the Balch Hill Stewardship Fund in her name.
2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 – and the beginning of the environmental movement that has inspired so much healthy, positive change in how we treat our home planet. Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, US Senator from Wisconsin, came up with the idea after witnessing a massive oil spill in California. It was the Vietnam Era; Sen. Nelson hoped to infuse the energy of anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution to force environmental protection onto the national political agenda.
Organizers chose April 22 (between Spring Break and final exams), for an event that drew 20 million Americans — 10% of the total US population — to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast protests, uniting groups fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, gaining support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, business and labor leaders. Congress soon passed the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts and created the US Environmental Protection Agency.
