Wintonbury Land Trust

It’s time for a party! Members and guests are invited to an informal Fall Social at Hawk Hill Farm. From 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. the Beanery Bistro will serve delicious apple and pumpkin doughnuts and sparkling and mulled ciders in the barn. Fire pits outside the barn will keep away the autumn chill (please email if you can loan another). We’ll have lawn chairs, or bring your favorite. Dress is stay-warm casual! Current members are free, and guests are $3 at the door (additional donations welcome).

Beginning at 3:00 p.m. are two optional hikes starting from the barn – and returning in time for warm cider and doughnuts with the others! One will be 0.75 miles up Hawk Hill to the top field of Bloomfield’s LaSalette Park – from Highland Cattle to a view of Hartford. The other will be 1.5 miles up Hawk Hill to circle around a pond and through the wooded, northern section of LaSalette Park.

One of our major initiatives is to provide greater public access to the important parcels you’ve helped protect. Volunteers have been hard at work this Fall on the LaSalette Trail which connects Hawk Hill Farm and LaSalette Park with other nearby Land Trust parcels and – eventually – the Town’s Filley Park. We’re celebrating the recent completion of phase 1 which you can see on the hikes. We’ll be happy to tell you more about these efforts and the progress restoring the barn when we see you Saturday!

Enjoy an invigorating hike from Bloomfield to Simsbury co-sponsored by the Wintonbury and Simsbury Land Trusts and Bloomfield Leisure Services. Along with the scenery, the free hike will showcase WLT and SLT properties that provide town-to-town trail connectivity linking through Penwood State Park.

For the approximately 5.5-mile hike, we’ll meet at 9:30 a.m. at the hike’s end point: the Drake Hill Road Flower Bridge in Simsbury. Bloomfield Leisure Services will provide a bus to shuttle hikers to the starting point, the 1834 Oliver Filley House in LaSalette Park on Mountain Avenue in Bloomfield.

From there, we’ll ascend to Penwood through WLT’s Hawk Hill Farm, home to distinctive Highland cattle, and WLT’s Stout Family Fields. We’ll take a rest stop in Penwood, visiting Lake Louise and The Pinnacle.

Then we’ll descend into Simsbury by way of SLT’s gorgeous Tanager Hill property. Finally, we’ll walk through SLT’s Owen Mortimer parcel and arrive back at the meeting place, the Flower Bridge. We expect to finish by approximately 1:00 p.m.