News & Events – Page 5 – Harvard Conservation Trust

New Year’s Day 2021 Poetry Walk

December 23, 2020

This year our traditional HCT New Year’s Day Walk will be modified in keeping with best practices for safety during the pandemic. We are hosting a Poetry Walk on the Burgess-Brown land, and participants are advised to walk alone or in small groups that maintain appropriate social distance. A favorite HCT trail traverses this landscape and scattered along the path you will discover, among the trees, poems about winter and new beginnings. We hope that the self guided and reflective nature of this activity helps us all to confidently step into a bright and hopeful new year, when we can

Shaker Spring House Trail

December 14, 2020

An often-overlooked trail here in Harvard is the Shaker Spring House trail! It’s recently been refreshed, and the 45-min loop offers beautiful walk through forest and wetlands as well as a close-up look at a historic landmark: the Shaker Spring house. The house and water system underneath was originally built by the Shakers in 1855. Suffering from a drought, they laid an aqueduct about a mile long from the spring at this site to a reservoir in Shaker Village (now Route 2 runs between these two sites, so you won’t be able to hike from this trail over to the

CARES ACT Changes to Charitable Giving

December 1, 2020

HCT Members & Friends: The COVID 19 Stimulus Package, also known as the CARES Act contained language that impacts the way your charitable contributions to the organizations you care about are rewarded by the IRS. To highlight a few of these changes: The adjusted gross income (AGI) limit for cash donations was increased for individuals. In 2020, cash contributions may be deducted up to 100 percent of your AGI (increased from 60 percent). If you’re between 59½ years old and 70½ years old, benefits similar to a QCD (Qualified Charitable Distribution) are now available; you can take a cash distribution

Review: 2020 Annual Meeting

November 19, 2020

For those who may have missed it, the 2020 Annual Meeting was one of the best attended anyone can remember. Nearly 70 individuals joined our Zoom meeting, and all learned something new about how mycorrhizal relationships work, how trees share, and how fungal species establish relationships with plants while avoiding other fungus. We also learned how all of the preceding three statements are all referencing the same wood-wide web! Dr. Susan Goldhor, of the Boston Mycological Club has left us all with a better understanding and appreciation of the many ecological processes taking place right under our feet that we

Annual Meeting

November 6, 2020

The Harvard Conservation Trust’s Annual Meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 18th at 7:00 pm, and we invite you to join us. Our invited speaker this year is President of the Boston Mycological Club, Susan Goldhor. She will speak to us about fungi, conservation, and the ways in which they are related. Ms. Goldhor will begin speaking at about 7:30 pm, following the completion of the required Trust business. This year’s highlights will include a review of a very busy year in land protection with a video tour of some recent successes, the introduction of HCT’s new Executive Director,

Brehm Trail Re-Opened with Student Trail Work

September 21, 2020

The HCT has just re-opened the Brehm trail! It’s a great hike or ride, with some significant hills to climb if you’re looking for a cardio workout. You’ll find the new trailhead, marked with an HCT sign, just west of 149 Stow Road, on the north side of the street. There’s parking for 3-4 cars alongside the road across the street, or you can park at the town gravel pit, which sits back from the road about 150 yards west of the trailhead. The new Stow Road entrance trailhead provides easy access into the Brehm lands, purchased by the Trust

Choosing What to Conserve

September 1, 2020

How does HCT know which lands to pursue and protect? The Lands Protection Committee has created a matrix to help sort the variable and drive the process.

Introducing: HCT-Bromfield Student Service Collaboration

August 17, 2020

Student volunteers from Bromfield have been working outdoors all Summer on protected lands across Harvard: clearing new trails and making sure that existing trails are well marked and safe for hikers and wildlife. It’s all part of a new collaboration between The Harvard Conservation Trust and the Bromfield School, who have worked together to create an alternative learning experience off school grounds. As part of Bromfield’s commitment to encouraging active citizenship and volunteerism, students must complete 40 hours of community service in order to graduate. Through the HCT collaboration, Students can be of service to their community and learn about