March Spotlight on Middlebury Land Trust Properties

Send in your guess identifying the March “Can You Guess The Location?” mystery Middlebury Land Trust property. (Alice Hallaran photo)

By JANINE SULLIVAN-WILEY

Each month, this column features a gem of land preserved in perpetuity by the Middlebury Land Trust (MLT). We also publish a picture of a mystery location on one of the MLT properties. Readers are invited to submit their guesses to see who is the first to correctly identify the mystery location.

Land trust property can be used and enjoyed through “passive recreation” activities such as walking, hiking, birding, geocaching, photography, outdoor educational projects by schools, and more. Information on MLT properties and more is on the MLT website, www.middleburylandtrust.org.

Congratulations to Mike Zinko, the first person to correctly identify the February mystery location photo as Larkin Pond. He wrote it is, “a beautiful area … just down the road from Long Meadow Pond.” Kudos to Brittany Stoker, Joshua Rickards, Susan Salcito, Jim Curcuruto, Gary Jordan, David Shand, and Elaine McKinney, who also correctly identified the location.

Thanks to everyone who responded to the February Spotlight article! It was great fun hearing your thoughts on Lake Elise, as well as Larkin Pond and its surrounding property. Your comments will go to the Middlebury Land Trust board and will be very helpful to them as they manage these Middlebury treasures.

Larkin Pond and the surrounding land is also known by some, and is identified within the MLT, as Fodder’s Folly. (More on that name below.) It encompasses 51 acres bordered on two sides by South Street and Long Meadow Road. It is a beautiful tract that includes the aforementioned pond, plus fields, wetlands and woodlands. The fields have long been farmed as part of the agricultural use of the property, and in season you may find tomatoes and corn growing there. The MLT continues such agricultural use of some of its properties to maintain their historical character.

There is no longer a clear trail through the parcel, but intrepid hikers can make their way around the pond. If you decide to go there, enter from the field on South Street; there is space to leave your car along the side of the road. Wear good hiking shoes, as there are both rocky and boggy stretches to go through.

On a recent hike there, we found the rocks at the southwest end of the pond to be, as noted by Rickards, a great place to sit and quietly enjoy the area. We also noted coyote scat in several places, so you should keep your dogs leashed for their protection.

Fodder’s Folly is home to a wide variety of bird life throughout the year, so it is an excellent location for birders to visit. In addition to the goldfinches and other songbirds (when they are not enjoying life down south), the pond and wetlands provide great habitat for kingfishers and blue herons, both of which can be spotted there. As winter winds down, this is a lovely spot to enjoy the outdoors, returning birds and budding vegetation.

The Larkin family donated this property to the land trust in 1976, and Marian Larkin graciously provided us with a detailed history of the land. Here is some of what she told us. The quotes are her words. The pond was designed and built by Dr. Charles Lewis Larkin Sr. (her grandfather). He built it for his grandchildren in “a swampy place in a hay field. It fills from a stream emanating from other family land atop Bedlam Hill … Its outflow wanders through woods, under Long Meadow Road, under the long defunct 14-mile trolley line, now the Larkin State Bridle Trail … another donation of my grandfather’s to the State of Connecticut as a bridle trail. [It then flows] into Long Meadow Brook before joining the Naugatuck River. The Middlebury Hunt, as in horses and hounds, has held their annual Hunter Trials on the rolling land by the pond.” Marian shared wonderful stories of fishing, skating and boating in this lovely spot.

And why the unusual name? Distinguished surgeon/gynecologist Dr. Larkin was called Fodder by one of his young grandsons, and the pond his Folly – so-called as a bit of a prank by a relative known for naming everything. Both names stuck. Thank you, Marian, for the fascinating background. I hope that people will treasure and enjoy this property as much as this family did for so many generations.

The photo of the March mystery location is above. Please email your guess to mbisubmit@gmail.com, and put “Guess the location” in the subject line. The April issue will name the first person to correctly guess the March mystery location.