Eighth Open Air Market and Festival at the Wadsworth Mansion

Middletown, CT Sunday August 22, 2010 9:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

As the sultry summer slides towards fall it is once again time to celebrate the bounties of Connecticut. The Wadsworth Mansion at Long Hill Estate, 421 Wadsworth Street, Middletown is hosting their eighth annual Open Air Market and Festival on Sunday August 22, 2010. The Festival will be open to the public from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. rain or shine. The event is free. The historic Mansion will transform its 700 foot vista into a marketplace and festival where a variety of vendors will gather to sell their Connecticut grown or made products. One can stroll from tent to tent purchasing fresh produce, fruit, cheese, breads and prepared foods. Local artisans, such as potters, painters, and jewelers have been invited to sell their work. Visitors will be encouraged to lounge on the lawn with lunch and listen to live music performed on the patio. Families can bring their children and spend the day. It will be a day to discover the Wadsworth Mansion, enjoy music and art, and experience the tradition of shopping at an open-air market.

Over eighty Connecticut vendors will be participating this year including: Cold Goats Farm, Flash and Fire Pottery, Northfordy Farm, Silks by Lucia, Hometown Bakery, La De Dah! Jewelry, fine artist Adele Johnson as well as hand spun yarns from Tidal Yarns.

Children’s and musical entertainment will be featured throughout the day. The Middletown Commission on the Arts will be sponsoring the musical entertainment. The Middletown Symphonic Band will play from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The Dramatix Showband entertains from 11:45 a.m. until 1:45 p.m. and the final performance between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. will be delivered by Tune Chic. There will be horse drawn carriage rides by Allegra Farms from 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. Along the vista there will be face painting from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Additionally young and old alike can make their own letterbox stamp and at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. you can learn to letterbox and take a short hike around the grounds to find a letterbox. Docent-led historical tours will be given by the Friends of Long Hill Estate throughout the day. And of course, don't forget to visit the Middletown Garden Club's Fall Plant Sale !

Convenient shuttle parking will be available from Snow School. Additional parking is available at Mercy High School. For a complete listing of performers and vendors visit www.wadsworthmansion.com.

Conservation Commission meeting notes 8/13/2009

The Conservation Commission meets on the second Thursday of every month at 7pm. The most recent meeting was held on August 13th and there was much to discuss.

Due to the success of the spring Letterbox Launch, the Commission decided to have a fall letterbox event to showcase another one of Middletown's beautiful open space and trails properties. The event is tentatively scheduled for October 17th at the Wilcox property - more details to follow.

The Commission also discussed a vote that will be before the Common Council next week that will facilitate the final step in securing the development rights to the beautiful and historic 44 acre Brock Farm property. The Commission discussed steps to take that will help provide the maximum benefit to the City and its Open Space program with the acquisition of this property. This is the first property where development rights will be purchased with a combination of funds from the Open Space Bond Referendum, Department of Environmental Protection grant money, and grant money from the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The Commission discussed the proposals that were submitted to the City for development of Maromas parcels and it was resolved that the Commission would support proposals that uphold these key principles: 1) maintain public accessibilty to the land and maintain ecological integrity of the land and 2) take into serious and thorough consideration all of the public comments that were obtained during the many public informational sessions that were held prior to the Request for Proposal (RFP) process.

CT Letterboxers Converge on Middletown

The Middletown Conservation Commission held its first annual Letterbox Launch today at the Daniels-Schwarzkopf Conservation Area, drawing dozens of letterboxing enthusiasts from around central Connecticut. Letterboxing is part hiking, part orienteering, part sleuthing, and lots of fun, not to mention that a community has cropped up around this sport/hobby that could be likened to a subculture of its own. Letterboxers came from Berlin, Enfield, Torrington, West Hartford, Middlefield and other towns around Connecticut for this event. Each letterboxer has a trail name which is personified by a custom stamp which each carries. Some of the stamps are hand carved. When the hidden boxes are found, the participants can stamps their books with the stamps that are hidden in the boxes. The Conservation Commission planted one letterbox for this event and listed it on various online forums including AtlasQuest, a popular website for letterboxing. After signing up for the event on AtlasQuest, a few letterboxers surreptitiously planted about 8 other boxes around the trails at Daniels-Schwarzkopf Conservation Area, so that when the event kicked off and the crowd hit the trails they had plenty of boxes to find and stamps to collect.

Many letterbox enthusiasts have established friendships and connections through the sport. One person spoke about having connected with a fellow letterboxer while on a trip to Arizona, thereby securing well-guided tours throughout the state by a knowledgeable escort. In addition she stated that letterboxing websites are a great way to plan activities for out of town trips because the boxes are planted anywhere and everywhere and the search for them can lead you off the beaten path, sometimes to beautiful sites that are not typically advertised in tourbooks. It was estimated by one of the other boxers that there may be up to 10,000 letterboxes hidden around Connecticut. One of the most devoted fans who turned out today has found nearly 6,000 boxes and another has found nearly 3,000.

Letterboxer and his daughter sport patches collected from the Department of Environmental Protection, LbCT organization, and others.

Letterboxing is a wonderful way to commune with like-minded souls and get the entire family out for an active and fun day in the outdoors. It turned out to be a perfect way to get the word out about Middletown's successful conservation program.

Middletown's Trail Guide is available online at: http://www.middletownplanning.com/documents/MdtnTrailGuide.pdf

Members of the Conservation Commission Ellen Lukens and David O'Brian

Poster collection of trail stamps from all of the letterboxers who attended the Conservation Commission's Spring Launch today. Thank you all!

Letterboxing - Save the Date!

Letterboxing - Save the Date!
April 25, 2009

The Middletown Conservation Commission is happy to announce our first Letterbox on City Conservation Land! A spring Letterboxing launch will be held on April 25, 2009 at 1pm in the afternoon at the Daniels-Schwarzkopf Conservation Area. This area, located off of Millbrook Road on on Old Johnson Lane, has a tightly packed network of relatively flat, easy trails. The Commission has been very busy with land preservation efforts, and is excited to encourage use of the City's conservation areas by the community through activities like letterboxing. This will be a fun event for the entire family, and anyone who likes the woods and nature and wants to learn more about Middletown's trails and open spaces.

Letterboxing is a fun way to enjoy our parks and natural areas. Letterboxes, small weatherproof containers with a logbook, rubber stamp and stamp pad, are hidden in remote or scenic places. The planter of the letterbox leaves clues about its location by word of mouth, on websites or via other means. Clues range from easy to difficult, and finding a letterbox may require a combination of skills such as map reading, orienteering, and puzzle-solving. Letterboxers carry their own logbook and personal stamp when hunting for hidden boxes. When they find a letterbox, they stamp their own logbook using the stamp inside, and leave their own stamp or mark in the letterbox's logbook. Some artistic letterboxers carve and even design their own stamps and logbooks. Letterboxes are hidden in various locations throughout the world.

Letterboxing information courtesy of Mark and Sue Pepe.

Middletown's Conservation Commission is an all volunteer land use commission with an emphasis on environmental quality and natural resource protection, which acts in an advisory capacity to the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency. The Commission is responsible for indexing all open space areas and wetlands, monitoring their use and overseeing their development. The Commission facilitates the acquisition of open space property.

The Conservation Commission also maintains a Trail Guide for the City's open space areas, now available online: www.middletownplanning.com/documents/MdtnTrailGuide.pdf.