Like this:

In case you don’t know me, I’m Pepper, official office companion of the Hunterdon Land Trust. The land trust moved its offices to the Dvoor Farm in Flemington at the beginning of the year and now I get to come to work at a 40 acre preserved farm.

I have an important job at the land trust-I greet the guests. Everyone is very friendly to me and I get lots of attention. Kids especially like me. I also provide the staff at the land trust the excuse they need to leave their desks and chairs for an occasional walk at the farm. They say that these walks remind them of “why they do what they do”. I am just happy to get out and patrol the perimeter, got to keep an eye on things.

Today I went for a walk after lunch with MW (the people call her Margaret Waldock ). We headed to the woods at the southwest corner of the Dvoor Farm, lots of big, old trees. They’ve all been tagged with silver labels like this:

It’s okay, the nails don’t hurt them. The people at the land trust are inventorying all these giant trees. They want to know how old they are and whether they are healthy, so they can protect them and make sure they live as long as possible. Some of these trees have been here for over 200 years. That’s about 1400 dog years.

Next, we headed through the trees and into the marsh, lots of action and smells here–birds everywhere, all different kinds. On are way back to the farmhouse, MW and I saw two eastern bluebirds in the marsh, looks like they knew each other because they were following each other from tree to tree. MW tried to get a picture, but they weren’t cooperating–every time I got closer, they flew farther away. They looked like this:

One was really bright colored, the other not so much. MW mentioned something about them being a pair and that we might see new tenants in the houses in the marsh, but I wasn’t paying attention because I had a stick in my mouth.

This is apparently where eastern bluebirds like to live.

 

This is where I like to live:

There’s no accounting for taste.

If you would like to visit the Historic Dvoor Farm to see the restoration projects the Hunterdon Land Trust is undertaking, including managing the old growth forest, the Mine Brook restoration, planting a native grass meadow – or if you want to meet Pepper – drop us an email at info@hlta.org and we’ll be happy to send you directions.

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