2021-3-24, Sabolcik Preserve, New Hartford, CT

 On 2021-3-24, I visited the Sabolcik Preserve, a New Hartford Land Trust preserve.  I made an interactive map with location numbers.  Here is a link to the interactive map: https://arcg.is/0Deuur0 .

Here is a static screenshot of the interactive map.



1.  I parked in a gravel parking area just west of a barrier that blocked Sabolcik Road.  Signs said the road is blocked from November 1 through April 15.

2.  A sign said four cars could park near this sign, 362 feet southwest of where I parked.


2.  There was a kiosk that displayed a map and other information.  The posted information states that the land that makes up the Sabolcik Preserve was donated by Alfred Sabolcik who lived on the property from when he was born in 1928 to when he died (in 2009).  Alfred Sabolcik lived in a house the outlines of which were visible near the kiosk.  The house had no running water.  At some time between about 1980 and 2009, a sand and gravel operation took place on the property.  A local person I talked to who appeared to be under forty years old said he remembers many dump trucks of material leaving the property.


2.  A sign next to the outlines of the house.


3.  This is looking southerly into the area that was flattened by the sand and gravel operation.  I think the black plastic was put down by New Hartford Land Trust volunteers to kill invasive plants.


3.  There were a lot of gray birch trees (Betula populifolia) in the preserve.  I believe these were young gray birches that had yet to turn white.


4.  The view from another bench of a beaver-created marsh.


Near 4.  I think this was some species in the Dendrolycopodium genus of spore-producing plants.



5.  A beaver dam.


5. A sign about the beavers.



6.  I thought these shrubs could be autumn olive, an invasive.



6


6.


7.  Grey birches which have turned white.



7.  White birches look a lot like gray birches but their leaves are less pointy.

8.  An ancient breached mill dam is what I thought this was.


8.  A stream flowing through what was once a dam.


8.  A large boulder (which may, or may not, have been a glacial erratic) near the dam remains.


8   I think this was a corner of the foundation of the mill.  Behind and above, I saw what looked like the remains of a mill race that brought water from the dam to a mill wheel that was next to the mill.



8. A screen shot of my interactive map.


8.  The view downstream.


8.  Gaultheria procumbens, also known as eastern spicy wintergreen and eastern teaberry.  Some people eat the red berries.




















David Reik

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