2020-11-12, Dismal Brook Wildlife Preserve, Granby, CT

On 2020-11-12, I visited a new Granby Land Trust preserve, Dismal Brook Wildlife Preserve in Granby, CT.  I made an interactive map with location numbers that I will refer to below.  Here is a link to the interactive map: http://arcg.is/1PyTGa .

Here is a static screenshot of the interactive map.



1.  Where I parked in a large, gravel parking lot.

2.  The view from one of two wildlife viewing platforms.



3.  Note that this new bridge is curved.


4.  The Day family farmed the land that is now the preserve for centuries.  Here, there is a cemetery where five people were buried from 1795 to 1850.  On my computer, I can right-click on any of the images in this blog and open the image in another tab to see more detail.  You can get more information about the cemetery at https://granbylandtrust.org/glt/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Day-Cemetery-May-2008-SBHS-Report.pdf .


4.  Who was the artist who produced this image?


4.  It appears that the same artist produced this image.


5.  This cabin had been recently restored.  The cabin was used as a vacation home by the Glazier family who owned the land that is now the preserve before the land was bought by Jamie Gamble, the man who donated the land to Granby Land Trust.


5.  Visitors are welcome to sit on the newly restored porch.


5.  David Reik on the porch.


5.  I didn't check the doors to see if they were locked., but I took pictures through the windows.  This looks like a pump organ.


5.  There were two chimneys.


6.  Visitors are welcome to sit and enjoy the view of the beaver pond.


7.  An orange-blazed trail, newly cut through the mountain laurel, led to this view of the the beaver pond.


8.  Information posted near the parking lot said there may have been a mill on the property at one time.  Here, there appeared to be the remains of an old mill dam.


Near 6.  This is were water left the beaver pond.  The pond was regulated not by a beaver dam but by a man-made dam.  It looks like the bars in this picture are designed to be lifted periodically to remove any wood and mud that beavers have put into place.  I believe that beavers are instinctually drawn to the sound of rushing water which they try to stop by building a dam.


9  A plaque to Jamie Gamble who apparently bought the land with the idea of donating the land to the Granby Land Trust.  Before he donated the land, he did a lot of work to make the land inviting.


David Reik

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