Went for a short hike today around a little area my town purchased in order to maintain as conservation land.
In combination with the purchase of an area called Clyde Pond, the purchase of Ashton Woods is 3/4 of a mile or so from my house and is clearly home to a large number of beavers, deer, owls, hawks, muskrats, turtles and other wildlife. The 40 acres of Ashton woods are connected to other conservation land surrounding the high school and other residential areas. about 2 acres of the 40 are open pond while much of the rest is marsh/swamp. The “trails” within it are barely used and difficult to distinguish at times and do not go all the way around the property. Bushwacking on the Northwest side of the land is required.
It also appears that there was a dump or in looking at a Windham map of the land, perhaps an auto repair garage and home on the Northwest side of the property as well given the junk and garbage present there along with two monitoring wells in that same area that I can only assume are there to monitor for groundwater contamination. Regardless…most of the property is quite nice and secluded and quiet. Now kept in an undisturbed state it should provide excellent water filtration, drainage and wildlife habitat for the coming years. I am going to try and research the garbage/debris and find out its origin as I’m curious given the notations of the garage on the town map…
