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The 2010 Big Hosmer loons with chicks in tow.

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Events Past and Future with the Hosmer Ponds Watershed Initiative

09.Aug.2010

For the last year, the Craftsbury Outdoor Center has been working with the Hosmer Ponds Watershed Initiative, a group of local residents dedicated to learning about, protecting, and enjoying our wonderful piece of Vermont. There's a new section of our website about the group, complete with a PDF version of their newsletter, Notes From The Hosmers, so check it out! The Center hosted one event for the Hosmers group last week, and is looking forward to another later in August.

Last Wednesday, the Center had a pizza party for community members who live around the Hosmers. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we managed to beat the thunderstorms! The kitchen made some delicious pizza, and Scott manned the outdoor bread oven while people gathered and chatted over food and drink. Tracy Zschau from the Vermont Land Trust was also on hand to thank our neighbors George and Elinor Osborne for donating a conservation easement on their land. We hope that their generous gift will inspire others to think about conservation as well! In the end, we went through about 20 wonderful pizzas, and had a great time catching up with everyone in the neighborhood.

The next event will be held on Thursday, August 26th. The Center will be hosting an evening for sharing wildlife stories from around the Hosmer Ponds area. Do you think you've seen a bobcat? Did you have an encounter with a bear? What kinds of animals do you see in your backyard? Come share your experiences so we can all learn about what's living just outside our doors!

The event will also kick off a new community wildlife mapping project. We'll put your stories on a map, and as we collect more and more sightings, we'll develop a picture of where different animals live in the Craftsbury/Albany area! The land around the Hosmers is an important wildlife corridor connecting the Worcester Range to the more Eastern parts of the Kingdom, and we can map out this corridor with our own observations. This project was inspired by the Staying Connected initiative, a project of the Vermont Nature Conservancy which works to preserve important wildlife linkages.

Things will start up at 7 p.m. For more info, contact Chelsea.

Links:

Hosmer Ponds Watershed Initiative on our website

Vermont Land Trust

Staying Connected

Photos from the pizza party