Phillips-Lovdal Farm Preserve
Phillips-Lovdal Farm Preserve is a 155-acre preserve that provides open space for passive recreation, and agriculture. It also serves as important habitat to numerous species of native plants, birds, mammals and amphibians. A small barn greets visitors as they turn in to the preserve's parking area entrance off Sanford Road . The original barn did not make it through the winter of 2011, and after a robust fundraising effort, "George's Barn" was rebuilt by 2013.
The property's trail system includes a 5K course, which leads visitors through forests, along streams, past old foundations, and stone walls, as well as meadows and hayfields. Approximately 40 acres of the property is in active hay production.
Deciduous forest makes up the bulk of the property with stands of maple, beech, birch, oak, hickory, elm and cottonwood. Massive oak and tulip legacy trees turn up along areas of the trail network. Notable Shagbark hickories are also found throughout the preserve, perfect roosting sites for the endangered Northern Long-eared Bat.
A former orchard of Baldwin heritage apples, once the source for farmer George's cider, lives a new life as pasture and shade for a small herd of cattle.
Important watercourses on the preserve include spring-seeps, vernal pools, the headwaters of the of the Jeremy Brook, a one-acre pond, and "the fen." The fen, fed from underground mineralized water sources, is a rare resource. Many plants and pollinators are unique to this specialized water feature. Visitors are welcome to view the fen from a boardwalk and observation deck.
