Ruth Cutler’s property in Ashford, Connecticut, has been in the family for nearly 100 years. Her grandfather purchased the original 127 acres in 1927, and the family has called it “The Farm” ever since. Cutler has lived on the land, in a 1740s farmhouse, since the 1980s and recently acquired another 122 acres from her neighbors, the McCullochs. Now encompassing nearly 250 acres, Cutler’s property extends for about a mile along a designated scenic dirt road, with all of it under easement with Joshua’s Tract Conservation and Historic Land Trust.
More than 200 acres of the property are forested. There are several vernal pools, a 15-acre spring-fed pond, and a brook that eventually drains into the Willimantic Reservoir. The land also abuts Natchaug State Forest and the blue-blazed hiking trail network, where Cutler frequently hikes. With the trail connecting to the 6,000-acre Yale Forest, Cutler thinks about the land serving as a linkage: connecting places of recreation, as a corridor for wildlife, and as a piece of the forest matrix. Maintaining interconnectivity of the woods, wetlands, and waters on the property and beyond is important to Cutler, as is protecting the rural and historic character of the land.
Cutler’s grandfather used the property as a hunting and fishing retreat, and imprints of the family’s history remain, such as the old, sprawling blueberry bushes and the white-flowering dogwood trees (Cornus florida) that her grandfather planted to commemorate hunting dogs. Although the victory garden, planted initially during World War II, has slowly faded, the late caretaker, Sammy Main, restored the stone walls and maintained the old pastures. What was once a thriving orchard is now limited to a few surviving apple trees, but they are still producing. “I have photos from the 1940s where those trees are full grown, so they’ve been around a long time,” Cutler said. She is determined to keep the remaining trees in good health. Originally used for cider, they now feed the wildlife.
Forest regeneration and management have not historically been a priority on the property. Cutler remembers Hash Landon, a specialty forester, selecting robust oaks for the restoration of the historic whaling ship, the Charles W. Morgan, at Mystic Seaport, but otherwise, forest management was limited to firewood production. The property was mainly used for recreation throughout Cutler’s childhood. The forest is primarily oak and hickory, with some beech, and three white pine stands. Cutler has noticed black birch and white oak regeneration, and in 2021, a mast year for shagbark hickory, she collected and sprouted nuts and planted them in suitable habitat. Cutler is just beginning to implement larger management plans under the guidance of consulting forester Eric Hansen, with a focus on wildlife habitat and biodiversity.
After her grandfather died, the property went to Cutler’s mother and her four siblings. During the 1980s, with increasingly high development pressure in the area, Cutler’s family bought the others’ shares of the property to take full ownership, with a goal of keeping the land in the family. That ownership eventually passed to Cutler and her two siblings, and Cutler gained sole ownership in 2023.
Cutler studied under Don Walker at The Conway School of Landscape Design, which prepared her to think about ecology when approaching projects. “He taught us about plant communities and what belongs where and with what, and I’m always really conscious of that,” she said.
After working in landscape design for many years in New York City, Cutler spent 25 years as an outreach coordinator at the Coverts Project, a collaborative initiative run by UConn Extension, Connecticut Forest and Park Association, and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) with the goal of helping landowners and stewards learn best practices in land management. Former New England Forestry Foundation Executive Director Bob Perschel introduced Cutler to the Coverts Project. “That was when I got really involved in conservation and thinking about forestry,” she said. “I organized and attended all their programs and outreach walks.” She also studied tracking with Susan Morse. Cutler counts all these experiences as training for taking on the responsibility of stewarding 250 acres.
Invasives are a major concern on the property. The stream corridors and swamp areas are dominated by Japanese barberry, multiflora rose, and bittersweet. There is autumn olive in the fields, and spongy moth and hemlock woolly adelgid in the forest. “You name it, we’ve got it,” Cutler said. “If you turn your back, everything is gone to invasives.”
This past March, she hired Gregg Corso, of landscape company ArborActive, to cut an area of barberry and burn it. In a few places in the old fields, where invasive species management has been aggressive and has included repeated mowing, Cutler has noticed native meadowsweet returning. Stopping the spread of invasives before undertaking any larger forest management projects is her priority, although she’d like to do patch cuts to encourage more oak regeneration and is exploring horse logging as a low-impact option. Cutler keeps about 4 acres as field habitat, where she does some hands-on management herself. “I just bought a battery-run weedwhacker and let me tell you, even at 5'1" and 77 years old, I can use it,” she said.
She has also started an experimental planting of golden groundsel (Packera aurea) in a sediment-rich stream corridor area, after pulling all the Japanese barberry there. The resilient native plants made it through last spring’s flooding and are matting. “It’s great at stabilizing the bank and it can really take a beating,” Cutler said. She is keeping a vigilant eye on the area to ensure the groundsel doesn’t overperform and spread beyond where she wants it.
Maintaining wildlife habitat and fostering more continuity between the two originally separate parcels and the contiguous forest is also important to Cutler. Her forest management plan focuses on creating and maintaining diverse bird habitat. A team from the Audubon chapter in Sharon and Connecticut Audubon in Pomfret have conducted forest interior bird surveys and found wood thrushes and cerulean warblers here. Other wildlife includes little brown bats, who lived in Cutler’s attic for many years.
“When I moved back in the 1980s, there were about 600 bats on the second floor of the house – and for a while that’s how it was: I was downstairs, they were upstairs,” she said. She built a 12x14-foot bat house, and within a few years they fully moved – although it was into the barn, not the bat house. With white nose syndrome, the numbers dwindled to 75, but now she’s happy to report her bat population is back up to about 250. Bat biologists from DEEP come out every year to count, and last year they put transmitters on four bats. “It appears they often hunt over farm fields,” Cutler said. “It really made me realize the importance of a matrix of habitats.”
It is important to Cutler both to protect the land and also to retain enough value in it that someone will be able to continue stewarding it. With no next generation in the family to both love “The Farm” and also to take on responsibility for it, Cutler has thought deeply about the placement and restrictions of easements. Bryan Avery, land protection manager at Joshua’s Trust, has helped Cutler puzzle through the complicated process. Cutler will eventually leave the land to Joshua’s Trust, which will continue to prioritize wildlife habitat, education, and perhaps even forest research in the future.
“More than anything, I’d like to see the land is still here in all its vibrancy,” Cutler said, noting that a whole community of people have been critical to helping her think about the land and how to steward it, especially Eric Hansen, and the folks at Joshua’s Trust. “I really want to make it clear that this is a group effort, not just me. Conservation takes a team. Everyone has contributed a lot. I have been very fortunate to have this place and to get to be a part of it.”