Every Acre Counts: Shelton Land Trust Receives Donation

The Shelton Land Trust plans to name a newly acquired piece of woodland along Long Hill Avenue for the longtime resident who donated it.

Land Trust President Joe Welsh said William Thiele donated a one-acre parcel at 706 Long Hill Avenue, which will be added 3.25 acres that was previously donated as a subdivision’s conservation easement.

The organization plans to erect a sign naming the parcel as Thiele Woods, he said.

It was the first piece of land donated in a long while. It’s been 10 years since the Land Trust got its last parcel,” Welsh said.

He and his son, Ryan, 7, visited the land on a recent Saturday afternoon amid a surprise snowfall that filled the air with flakes but failed to leave any accumulation.

While there, they filled a large garbage bag with litter and also removed a shopping cart, two automobile tires, three hub caps and a plastic bucket.

The combined 4.25-acre parcel is rugged, steep and rocky, and a stream crosses it. It is difficult to imagine how it could have been developed economically. There is also an old stone wall and a structure that looks like a massive stone chair. It appears to have been used as a fireplace of some sort.

Welsh said as far as he knows, the small stream is unnamed, but he might ask that it, too, be named officially for the Thiele family.

William Thiele now lives in Oxford, but he used to live in the house next door to the Land Trust land.

The land connects with a pipeline easement and other Land Trust property to form an extension of a corridor of open space that stretches north all the way to Spoke Drive.

Welsh said that will allow animals native to Connecticut’s upland woods habitat to migrate without interference from people.

He added that volunteers would be hard at work in the coming months striving to rid the new property of several invasive species, including multiflora rose, oriental bittersweet, winged burning bush and Japanese barberry.

Welsh said Land Trust members attend workshops put on by the Connecticut Invasive Species Working Group at the University of Connecticut in Storrs to learn how to eradicate the unwanted bushes and vines.

By the way — the Shelton Land Trust has scheduled its annual meeting for April 2 at 7 p.m. at the Plumb Memorial Library.

The public is invited to hear a talk by guest speakers from the Nutmeg Chapter of Trout Unlimited about that group’s Trout in the Classroom program.

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