2021-3-31, Trolley Bed Preserve, Woodbury, CT

 On 2021-3-30 and 2021-3-31, I visited Trolley Bed Preserve in Woodbury, CT.  I made an interactive map with location numbers that I'll refer to in this blog post.  Here's a link to the interactive map: https://arcg.is/f8TSG .  I'll put in a static screenshot giving you an overview of the interactive map.


I'll start with my pictures from 2021-3-30.

1.  A map kiosk near where I parked in a gravel pull-off that could hold ten cars or so.



2.


8.  It's hard to see in this picture, but there was a tunnel opening across South Brook.  I later found, on the town of Woodbury website, a link to a video that must have cost many thousands of dollars to make about an exploration of the tunnel.  It was a copper mine in the 1730s or 1740s.  Here's the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP9aOisynaw .


10.  This was near where the the Trolley Bed Trail met Middle Quarter Road.  Note the miniature replica of the larger house.


9.  The Trolley Bed Trail.  Here's a link to a blog post that discusses the trolley line: https://rc-pedalpoint.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-woodbury-trolley.html .


7.  Can you see the two steel (or are they iron?) beams?  I think they once supported a bridge here.


7.  A stump by the old bridge site.


6.  One of several culverts that took South Brook under the trolley bed.


6.  A hollow sycamore.


5.  South Brook.


4.  South Brook.



Near 3.  Another culvert.



11.  This was on a set of mountain bike trails I explored.  I think it was a barn foundation.  Because of the mortar, I thought the barn was in use into the twentieth century.


11.  There were several "wolf trees" near here that must have been young when this land was mostly free of trees.  I thought this was a sugar maple.


3.  A view of Woodbury Reservoir which I don't think is actively used for a public water supply.  The open water is surrounded by wetlands now.  I think the water level used to be higher.  Water seemed to flow around a dam near here.

Here are my pictures from 2021-3-31.

12.  I went back to the bike trails.  The orange in the rock I thought suggested the presence of iron which, I learned in the video, is often associated with other metals.



14.  A lot of work has gone into the creation and maintenance of these circuitous bike trails.


13.  I wondered what the species of this tree was.  The bark looked like chestnut oak bark but I didn't think the tree was a chestnut oak.  Perhaps a black tupelo tree?


13.


Near 13.  There were many red pines near here.  Note the two needles in a clump.  I think these trees were planted by a water company in the 1950s of 1960s.  I keep hearing that all these planted red pines (they are not native to Connecticut) have died.


15.  More funny-colored rock.


15.


15.  More evidence of the industry of mountain trail builders.


Near 14.  A healthy looking young hemlock tree.  In 1990, people were saying that the wooly adelgid would kill all the hemlocks.


12.  An old bottle.


12.








David Reik

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