Wildlands Celebrates the Season, Raises Money for Youth Programs at OkTRAILberfest

By Rachel Calderara, Education & Outreach Manager

Photo courtesy of Andrew Lederman Photography

Wildlands Trust hosted its second OkTRAILberfest celebration on Saturday, October 13, attracting over 200 guests to its headquarters at Davis-Douglas Farm in Plymouth. OkTRAILberfest honors the traditional German-style celebration of beer and brats, but in addition offers a variety of guided hikes on our local trail systems. What better place to end a hike than at a festival with locally brewed beer, farm fresh food, and live music?

A hot buffet of German themed faire was provided by Farms to Forks Catering, offering up bratwurst, sauerkraut, homemade pretzels, potato pancakes, and root veggies. Locally crafted beers from Plymouth breweries Independent Fermentations Brewing and Mayflower Brewing were on tap, ranging in styles from IPA to Porter. Local folk band Butch McCarthy and the Gentlemen of Leisure kept the festival spirit alive while our guests ate, drank, and mingled in the Community Conservation Barn and by fire pit.

Green Team members stand next to the raffle table at OkTRAILberfest. Photo courtesy of Alex Cattullo.

The community came together to cheer on competitors of the midafternoon growler hoisting contest, with the winner in both female and male divisions taking a growler home from Mayflower or IndieFerm. At the end of the day, everyone gathered again at the raffle drawing for their chance to win over 20 prizes, totaling $1,770 in value, donated by local businesses.

OkTRAILberfest honors the Wildlands Trust mission to protect land and keep our communities connected to the natural world, while also raising money for the Youth Unplugged Initiative. Youth Unplugged provides opportunities for the next generation to engage in outdoor learning. Through keystone Green Team and Envirothon programs, as well as partnerships with existing youth groups, Wildlands provides kids and teens throughout the region with productive, hands-on opportunities to learn about the environment and contribute to their communities.

With the help of generous sponsors, vendors, and festival attendees, $7,000 was raised at OkTRAILberfest this year to keep Youth Unplugged programs running through 2019 and beyond!

Thank you to sponsors, vendors, and everyone who came out to celebrate!

Welcome to our new AmeriCorps Member, Hayley Leonard!

Hayley Leonard has joined Wildlands Trust for 11 months of AmeriCorps service in the Massachusetts-based TerraCorps program. As a TerraCorps Community Engagement Coordinator, Hayley will build the capacity of Wildlands Trust by developing meaningful and inclusive educational programming for adults and teens in our region. Hayley is a recent graduate of the University of Maine where she earned her Bachelor of Science in ecology & environmental sciences. During her undergraduate career, she spent her summers interning for Earthwatch Institute and working at a 4-H camp on Cape Cod. Wildlands is excited to welcome her to the team and we look forward to seeing what another great service year will bring!

Reduce Food Waste This Fall with Pickling

By TerraCorps Community Engagement Coordinator, Hayley Leonard

With summer coming to an end, you may have found yourself with an overabundance of vegetables from your garden. Rather than rushing to incorporate them into meals before they go bad, why not try pickling them? For nearly 5,000 years, humans have been pickling as a way to preserve foods, whether it be fruits, vegetables, or meats.

“Pickling” is a general term that refers to preserving food in an acidic medium. Traditionally, pickling was done through fermentation, which relies solely on salt and the beneficial bacteria, lactobacilli, to convert the sugars and starches naturally present in food into lactic acid. Fermented foods offer an array of health benefits due to being packed with probiotics. However, if the idea of fermenting your own foods seems daunting to you, don’t worry! You can still achieve the same great taste by using vinegar as the acidic medium. Vinegar pickles should be canned if you plan to store them in your pantry long term, but canning is not necessary if you choose to store them in your refrigerator. Making refrigerator pickles is as simple as boiling a vinegar based brine, pouring it over the foods you wish to pickle, and sticking the jar in the fridge. Refrigerator pickles will last up to two months and are ready to be eaten in as little as 5-7 days.

Pickling is a simple way to cut down your food waste and add a zest to any meal. Fresh pickles on a burger? Nothing better. Pickled mushrooms to dress your Bloody Mary? Yes, please! Pickled red onions on your taco? Delicious. Pickled peach salsa? Why not? The options are endless when it comes to pickling, but one thing I can guarantee is that you will never look at store bought pickled foods the same.

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Interested in learning how to pickle your own veggies? Join us Saturday, October 20, 2018 for a pickling workshop at Davis-Douglas Farm in Plymouth. Registration and more information can be found on our events page at wildlandstrust.org/events.

New Homes to Attract Winged Residents at Union Point

Residents of Fairing Way work together to construct a bluebird box.

On August 13, Wildlands’ Community Stewardship Coordinator, Conor Michaud, began the much anticipated nesting bird box project at Union Point, meant to engage the community in a project benefiting both the residents and local bird population. Union Point has modeled itself as a rising smart city, offering their residents a comfortable modern community to eventually be complete with retail shops, restaurants and sporting arenas. One of the most attractive aspects of this modern dream world is the 1,000 acres of open space, comprising ponds, wetlands, forests and open fields. Over the last two years, Wildlands has been working with Union Point in Weymouth, Rockland and Abington to help manage the meandering trail system on the southern section of the former naval air base. The various habitats within this bountiful trail system provide the perfect opportunity to attract more of the beautiful but flighty, and in many cases dwindling, inhabitants of these ecosystems. We are talking, of course, about the birds. Throughout September, Conor will be working with residents of Union Point’s Fairing Way, a community built around healthy and active retirement living, to complete 20 nesting bird boxes designed to attract several different bird species including the northern flicker, eastern screech owl and great crested flycatcher. When early spring arrives, Conor will head out to the trails and install each box in the ideal location and monitor the boxes throughout the season. Thanks to this partnership between Union Point, Wildlands Trust and Fairing Way, we can soon hope to see the populations of several declining bird species rise throughout these popular South Shore towns.

If you would like to learn more about Wildlands Trust’s Community Stewardship Program, please contact Conor Michaud at cmichaud@wildlandstrust.org

Conor Michaud (far left) and the residents of Fairing Way show off three of the bird boxes they built: (from left to right) a bluebird box, a norther flicker box and an eastern screech owl box.