Arterial corridors being studied are in red. Click on the image to enlarge.
You are invited to attend 2 upcoming public meetings to learn and provide input to make Middletown’s major arterial corridors safer for everyone. This is part of Connecticut’s Safe Streets For All (SS4A) program. Continue reading
We are making progress on the Midden Lookout Park and will soon be requesting volunteers for our next steps. (Note: “Midden” is a word that means “trash pile” or, in our case, “landfill.”) The photo below shows the various existing and new trail segments. At the bottom is the Keating Enterprise Building at 180 Johnson Street in Middletown.
Work Party #1 (Date TBD) — On a day when there is snow on the ground (to minimize the presence of ticks) but it’s not too cold, we will need help clearing the route for the Loop Trail. No equipment is necessary — boots to stomp down the mugwort make good tools. But, if you have them, loppers, clippers, pruning saws, or weed whackers will be useful.
Work Party #2 (Date TBD) — After woodchips are dumped on the midden cap, we need people to help spread them to suppress the mugwort in the spring.
If you can help us out (depending on your availability on the exact date, of course) please sign up as a Trail Blazer using this form. That will put you on the list for upcoming messages. Thank you to all who have already signed up! You may also use our Contact Form and put the words “Midden Volunteer List” in the message space.
We hope to see you soon for some fun, cool weather work on this project!
By Phil LeMontagne
Butterflies like Monarchs and Swallowtails are awesome to see in the garden. It’s even more exciting when a less common species like the Great Spangled Fritillary shows up! For nectar the adults like native flowers such as Purple Coneflower, Joe Pye Weed, and Common Milkweed. Great Spangled Fritillaries can live as adults for three months—at least three times longer than most butterflies! To attract them, grow native violets in the garden. These are the only plants their caterpillars will eat. Click here or on the image above to view.
Middletown power plant as seen from the Air Line Trail in Portland. Photo by John Hall
A recent New York Times article by Maxine Joselow reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to consider only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, not the monetary value of avoiding illness and saving human lives. The pollutants affected are fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone which are signifcant health hazards in the lower CT River Valley. A PDF copy of the full article may be found here.
Beau Doherty of Portland is an avid wildlife observer and excellent photographer. Below, he shares with us some photos of species you might spot during winter. Be on the lookout for them on your walks, especially those listed as endangered, threatened, or species of concern. Several of these photos were taken at the Helen Carlson Wildlife Sanctuary on South Road in Portland, a Preserve of Mattabeseck Audubon Society, designated an “eBird hotspot.“
The beautiful Hooded Merganser is seen often in winter at the Helen Carlson Preserve, in the Connecticut River, or in Great Hill Pond. This one surfaced with a small fish in its mouth. They nest in tree cavities.
Continue reading
Drone Video: Future Midden Lookout Park, approach from downtown Middletown over the North End neighborhood. Courtesy of Matthew Stauble, staublemedia.com.
On December 1st, Middletown’s Common Council unanimously supported a resolution granting permission for the Jonah Center to develop the city’s closed landfill (aka “midden”) into an environmental education and wildlife viewing area. The site overlooks a large marshland — the Floating Meadows — populated by herons, egrets, cormorants, osprey, eagles, ducks, beaver, muskrats, and deer. Continue reading
by Steve Cronkite
The Middletown Urban Forestry Commission (UFC) has been endeavoring to install a Miyawaki-style micro-forest in town for over two years. They are therefore thrilled to announce that on November 8th, with the help of 20 hard-working volunteers, they planted 99 donated native trees and shrubs and one native perennial in a Miyawaki-style micro-forest on the southeast corner of Van Buren Moody Elementary School on Country Club Road in Middletown. Continue reading
Each year, tax-deductible gifts help The Jonah Center for Earth and Art continue our work. Please consider donating today.
We advocate for multi-use trails, safer roads for pedestrians and bicycles, clean energy and energy efficiency, protecting our natural environment, reducing pollutants and toxic chemicals, removing invasive plants, supporting parks, planting and protecting trees, environmental education, and sustainable living in the greater Middletown, Connecticut area. (Video credit: John Shafer.)
If you have already donated, thank you.
We appreciate your support!
By Krishna Winston
The members of the Jonah Center Board are delighted to announce that on September 1 Kristen Colombo became the Center’s new Director. Kristen first contacted the Jonah Center in the fall of 2024 to ask about volunteer opportunities in furtherance of clean energy and sustainability. She had recently taken early retirement from Verizon Communications, where she headed up curriculum design and project management, building employees’ leadership skills and fostering career development. Kristen quickly demonstrated her passion for environmental work and an impressive range of skills and talents. Continue reading
By John Loughery, of the Berlin Land Trust
To view an enlarged version of this image on the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences website, click here.
The spotted lanternfly, a particularly beautiful, plant-hopping insect with a fiercely destructive nature, was unknown in the U.S. prior to the 2010s. September will be the crucial month. That is when spotted lantern flies deposit their eggs on tree bark, covering them with a thick white or gray-ish substance. It is necessary to scrape that substance off the tree, immediately killing the eggs, or vast numbers of these insects will be released into the environment in the spring, endangering plants and trees in that area. So, the message is: examine your trees! Continue reading
Reader’s Theater Presents “THE VELOCITY OF AUTUMN” by Eric Coble. A play about a 79-year-old artist, Alexandra, who barricades herself in her Brooklyn brownstone with Molotov cocktails to avoid moving into a nursing home. Her estranged son, Chris, climbs through a second-story window to mediate the situation, leading to a confrontation that explores themes of aging, independence, family dynamics, and the struggle to maintain one’s identity.
Sunday October 5th at 3:00 PM at the Oddfellows Playhouse in Middletown, CT.
To reserve a seat, please call OP at 860-347-6143, leaving your name and number of seats.
Donations accepted at the door.
Videographer Phil LeMontagne wrote: This video proves that you don’t have to leave the planet to see something that looks truly alien. I took the video on the grounds of the Wadsworth Mansion. I believe that it is a Tawny Garden Slug, (Limax flavus). The long tentacles at the front are for sight and smell. The short ones are for taste and touch. It was probably looking for something to eat, but since it was very exposed, in the middle of a very wide trail, it was more likely to be eaten itself.