all events are open to the public and are free - Southbury Land Trust

Fall 2007
Town Provides Funds for Two Farm Properties
Southbury residents once
again demonstrated their support
for land conservation by
voting unanimously to contribute
$445,000 toward the preservation
of the Mitchell and
Ludorf farmland.
Approval was given at a
special town meeting August16
to use the town’s Open Space
Acquisition Fund to help the
Southbury Land Trust secure
conservation easements on 49
acres on West Purchase Road
owned by Marie Ludorf and 42
acres on River Road owned by
Robert K. Mitchell III. The
Mitchell family has farmed its
land in Southbury since 1758
when Deacon Eleazar Mitchell
bought the property from the
Pootatuck Indians. The Ludorf
property has been farmed since
the 19 th century and is one of
the most scenic landscapes in
the Purchase area of
Southbury.
Protection of these beautiful
parcels continues the
A $200,859 grant has been approved
for the preservation of The Drumlin Hill
Tree Farm, a crucial piece of land located
between Southbury Land Trust’s Phillips
and Lovdal Farm properties.
The grant from the Federal Farm and
Ranchland Protection program will help
pay for a conservation easement on the 16acre
property, once part of the farm owned
by the Lovdal family. It is currently owned
by Leslie Butler who has operated a Christmas
tree business on the farm for several
years. Mr. Butler has expressed a strong
desire to see his land preserved.
Southbury Land Trust
Southbury Land Trust’s campaign
to save significant properties,
especially farmland, and to preserve
the rural character of the
town.
Both properties meet nearly all
of the criteria set by the town’s
Rural Preservation Advisory
Committee for open space. The
Mitchell land extends the green-
News
Fields on Mitchell Conservation Easement
Brawley Photo
belt from Audubon’s Bent of the
River Preserve to the Housatonic
River. It contains prime farmland
soils, provides significant
wildlife habitat, protects an aquifer
and is adjacent to the National
Register’s Little
Pootatuck Brook Archaeological
Site where the region’s last
Pootatuck Village was located.
The scenic open fields and
woodlands of the Ludorf property
are located across West
Purchase Road from the trust’s
Ivers Preserve; together they
make 188 acres of preserved
open space and wildlife habitat.
The Ludorf farm is listed on the
State Register of Historic Places.
Marie Ludorf plans to name the
property “The John Ludorf Preserve”
in honor of her father
who farmed the land for many
years and was the subject of a
series of photographs by Georgia
Sheron exhibited last year in
the Southbury Public Library.
Under terms of the conservation
easements Mr. Mitchell and Ms.
Ludorf will continue to own and
farm their land.
The two easements will prevent
development of approximately
22 houses on the two
properties which could have cost
taxpayers $220,000 a year, primarily
due to the number of
children the occupants of the
Continuted on page 2
Federal Grant Awarded to Preserve Key Property
Protecting this property has been a top
priority for the Southbury Land Trust.
Were it lost to development, the integrity of
the more than 150 acres of farm and woodlands
in the Phillips and Lovdal Farm preserves
would be seriously diminished.
Additional funding for the project is
also being sought from the State of Connecticut’s
Open Space and Watershed
grants program, administered by the Department
of Environmental Protection. We
expect to hear whether the grant has been
approved in the next month or so.

Page 2
New trustee
Dennis
Jedlinsky has
lived in
Southbury for
15 years, having
moved in
1992 from
Massachusetts
to re-locate to
the Duracell
Corporate
Headquarters in Bethel.
When he retired in 1998, he was
Vice-President of Finance for the Duracell
New Products and Technology
Division; before that he was Director of
Research Administration for the Duracell
Technology Center in Needham,
Massachusetts.
He has B.S. and M.S. degrees in
Engineering from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), and
worked for Boeing in Seattle, Washington
and for M.I.T. as an Industrial Liaison
Officer.
He and his wife Helena (Leni) - a 26
year Southbury resident - have five
children and eight grandchildren scattered
from New Hampshire to Georgia,
Director’s Diary,
As always there’s a lot happening
at the Southbury Land Trust.
Last April we participated in New
Morning Organics Earth Day celebration
in Woodbury by sharing land
conservation ideas and Hannan honey
sticks (a big hit). What a wonderful event
full of fantastic environmental information
and fabulous food. Thank you Mieke,
Tom, Geri, Ray and Kristiane for your time
working the SLT display. In keeping with
the Earth Day theme, on April 24 th we
sponsored a showing of “An Inconvenient
Truth.” April 29 th brought one of those
casual Sunday afternoon hikes up on the
Ludorf farm property where Ronnie Kamphausen
led us through the meadows of
early spring wildflowers.
In May we bought our very own powerpoint
projector thanks in part to a grant
from Northeast Utilities; the difference was
made up from the Eleanor Benedikt fund.
The projector was well utilized on the 19 th
when we had our Annual Celebration at the
Southbury Library. Ken Simon spoke
SLT Trustees up close
Florida and California.
In addition to volunteering with the
Southbury Land Trust, Dennis and Leni
are Directors of the Southbury-Middlebury
Scholarship Foundation and are
active in the South Britain Congregational
Church. Leni also serves on the
Grace Meadows Board of Directors.
Dennis grew up in Northeastern
Ohio, which he notes was, "part of the
Connecticut Western Reserve, with
wooded and rolling hills very much like
this area of Connecticut". His family
spent four years on his grandparents'
75-acre farm and saw first hand, "the
time and effort needed to care for the
land, and the peace and beauty that
open space could bring".
He added, "I believe life is very
much about having the right balance
and not moving to the extremes. It's
why I see the values and objectives of
the Land Trust to be so important. We
are not trying to prevent development
at all costs, but to balance prudent and
wise development and growth with the
protection and care of those special
open spaces which can benefit all of us
now and all those who will follow us".
about and showed segments of his fascinating
documentary, “Working the Land,” a
story of Connecticut farms. Delicious food
rounded out the afternoon enjoyed by more
than sixty people. (SLT donated a copy of
the film to the library if you’d like to check
it out).
Southbury Land Trust’s Stewardship
Chairs Regina Badura and Egbert Most led
the June 2 nd Connecticut Trails Day hike on
the Eleanor Benedikt Trail they’d blazed at
Lovdal Farm. (Thank you for the sign, Dick
Gracey.) It was a beautiful early summer
afternoon and we had a healthy turn out. At
the end of the month, Regina and Egbert
assembled and situated a bench dedicated to
Carolyn and John Longstreth from Donna
Civitello. The timing was perfect as Carolyn
and John, who now live in California,
passing through town on their way to Vermont,
were able to see their bench at Platt
Farm.
Later in June, the SLT annual membership
drive took place with a mailing of the
new Koons Preserve map. Thanks so much
to Donna Lesch of Pomperaug Watershed
Southbury Land Trust
News
THANK YOU
Corporate Donors!
IBM On Demand Community—$1,500
Computer equipment
Microsoft—$1,320
Computer software
Pitney Bowes—$625
Employee Involvement
Fund
Northeast Utilities—
$500 grant
Farmland, continued from page 1
houses would add to the school system.
Thanks to Anne Colby, the Southbury
Land Trust’s vice-president and expert
grant writer, more than $1.8 million in
federal and state funds have been approved
for these two projects. Thus the
Town’s contribution amounts to less than
20% of their total costs.
These projects are a great deal for the
Town in so many ways!
www.southburylandtrust.org
tral Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments
for creating the map and to Newtown
Savings Bank for funding its printing. Many
thanks to Carol Dicks for processing all
those membership applications! Thank you
John and Karen Erickson for staffing the
SLT table of info (and more of those famous
Hannan honey stix) at the Heritage Village
Civic Association Environmental Fair this
past July. Always a pleasure, this wellattended
event provides many insights and
alternatives for health, for both your body
and the environment.
In August, SLTers went to a forum in
Litchfield featuring Congressman Chris
Murphy who has been appointed Chairman
of the Congressional Land Conservation
Caucus. In this post, Murphy will assist
the House leadership in crafting legislation
to protect open space across the country.
Now we’re preparing for our October events
including a birding hike on October 14 th and
Ann Vileisis’ book slide lecture with yummy
refreshments on October 27 th at the
Southbury Library at 2:00. See you soon!
Coalition and Glenda Prentiss of the Cen- Karen Huber

Ann Vileisis’ Kitchen Literacy book talk
Page 3
Whether you cook for
yourself or a family of five
or just love to eat, an essential
ingredient in your
menu should be Ann Vileisis’
insightful new book,
Kitchen Literacy. The
public is invited to her
slide talk at the Southbury
Public Library, Saturday,
October 27
Sitting atop a knoll on Platt Farm overlooking the Pomperaug
Valley, this Southbury Land Trust BENEFACTOR BENCH was
donated by trustee Donna Civitello in recognition of Carolyn and
The SLT John StewLongstreth’s
extensive conservation efforts in Southbury.
ardship Committee For information about donating a bench, please call 264-4441.
has logged in over
250 hours of work
on Platt Farm STEWARDSHIP ACTIVITIES
alone.
Hikers, trustees, dogs and babies join Ct Trail Day Hike Leader
Regina Badura (second from right), at Lovdal Farm last June
th at 2:00 p.m.
Hosted by the Southbury
Land Trust and Flanders
Nature Center and Land
Trust, the program will be
followed with scrumptious
local baked goods and beverages
at which time Ann
will be available to autograph and sell copies of her book.
Ask children where food comes from, and they’ll probably
answer, “the supermarket.” Ask most adults, and their
replies may not be much different. We know remarkably
little about what we eat. Where our foods are raised and
what happens to them between farm and supermarket shelf
have become mysteries. How did we become so disconnected
from the sources of our beef, cheeses, cereal, lettuce,
and many other foods that nourish us every day?
In her slide show, Ann Vileisis’s answer is a sensoryrich
journey through the history of making dinner. From
eighteenth-century gardens and historic cookbooks to calculated
advertising campaigns and sleek supermarket
aisles, Kitchen Literacy chronicles profound changes in
how Americans have shopped, cooked, and thought about
their foods through two centuries. In the end, she reflects
on the modern shoppers’ movement toward eating local
and organic which has been gaining
ground and now gives us new
opportunities to find healthier,
better-tasting fare and to learn the
stories behind our foods once
again. By revealing the history of
how we’ve known—and not
known--our foods, Kitchen Literacy
promises to make us think
differently about what we eat.
Ann, Connecticut grown and
raised herself in Middlebury, became interested in history
and the environment as an undergraduate at Yale University
where she earned her B.A. She also has a Master’s
Degree in history from Utah State University. Daughter of
Jan and Marc Taylor, she is married to author and photographer
Tim Palmer. Ann and Tim lived for eleven years as
nomads in a Ford van, while doing their research and writ- To join the SLT Stewardship team, notify
ing. In 2003 they moved to the Oregon coast, where they
Regina at 264-6678 or email her at
now live in the small town of Port Orford.
stewardship@southburylandtrust.org

Board of Trustees
Thomas Crider,
President
Anne Colby,
Vice-President
William B. Neil, Jr.
Treasurer
Mark Manville,
Secretary
Donna Civitello
Anthony Cusano, M.D.
John Erickson
Lucinda Hunt-Stowell
Dennis Jedlinsky
Mary Luf
Marc J. Taylor, M.D.
Land Steward
Regina Badura
Executive Director
Karen A. Huber
NEWSLETTER
Barbara Bowen, Editor
Southbury Printing
Centre, Printer
“A nature lover is a person who, when treed by a bear, enjoys the view.” Anonymous
Southbury Land Trust, Inc.
Office:68 1/2 Bennett Square
(across from Leo’s Restaurant)
Mailing address:
P.O. Box 600
Southbury, CT 06488
PLACE ADDRESS
LABEL HERE
Non-Profit Organization
U.S. Postage PAID
Permit #76
Southbury, CT 06488
SOUTHBURY LAND TRUST FALL 2007 EVENTS
October 14—Southbury Training School. Hike the fields and meadows of this extraordinary
land at the peak of autumn color. Witness the stunning views that stretch across towns
and valleys. A naturalist will be on board to point out flora and fauna of interest. Refreshments
will be provided after the hike. Please meet at the Southbury Town Hall lower parking
lot at 1:30p.m. for carpooling to the training school. Call (203)264-4441 for directions or for
cancellation message in the event of rain. The terrain is hilly and the ticks still linger; so,
please dress appropriately.
October 27—Ann Vileisis’ slide talk about her insightful new book, Kitchen Literacy.
Southbury Public Library, 100 Poverty Road, Southbury at 2:00 p.m. Hosted by the
Southbury Land Trust and Flanders Nature Center and Land Trust, the program will be followed
by a scrumptious cobbler baked with apples from Southbury Land Trust’s own Phillips
Farm and beverages at which time Ann will be available to answer questions as well as autograph
and sell copies of her book.
November 18—Ask your Legislator. SLT, along with the Audubon at the Bent of the River,
Pomperaug River Watershed Coalition and Flanders Nature Center and Land Trust invite you
to a Legislative Reception at 2 p.m. in the historic Bent of the River Barn, 185 East Flat Hill
Road, (off Route 172) in South Britain. In addition to our valuable state legislators, Congressman
Chris Murphy has also been invited. Issues facing the environment in the local area
will be discussed and refreshments will be served.
ALL EVENTS ARE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC AND ARE FREE