The month of December 2014 was an extremely busy month for The Ausbon Sargent Land Preservation Trust as we closed on four new properties, adding 160 acres spread through four of the twelve towns that they service. This is an incredible boost to their conservation efforts, but even more exciting is that they have at least three more properties that are very near to closing.

A Springfield property that they are excited to help to protect is the Cummer-Lyle Conservation Easement located on Nichols Hill Road. Cheryl Cummer and Jack Lyle have been long-time supporters of the North Florida Land Trust and have preserved their family homestead in Mandarin, Florida on the St. Johns River through a conservation easement. With this in their history and conservation on their mind, they decided to preserve their family land near Star Lake Farm in Springfield, New Hampshire. The Springfield property is a mix of field and forest located on both sides of Nichols Hill Road. Their fields support nesting Bobolinks whose breeding habitats are open grassy fields, especially hay fields. The property has high ranking forest soils and is actively managed each year for hay with the intention of continuing to preserve the fields for the Bobolinks. There are very nice views of Croydon from the heights of land and this property will be open to the public to enjoy for low impact recreation.

Cheryl Cummer says of their property, “Jack & I have continued to protect and sustain the hay fields with the help of another neighboring farmer and his family. As we want to preserve our portion of the Nichols’ farm and these important relationships, we are grateful to Ausbon Sargent for creating an easement which will protect the land for the bobolinks and make the property available as fields and forests for the fauna who live here and for visitors who appreciate the beauty of New Hampshire’s open fields and mountain views.” Ausbon Sargent feels very fortunate to have landowners like Cheryl and Jack who share their interest in preserving the rural landscape of this area.

This month, Ausbon Sargent also added the 41-acre Blitzer Conservation Easement in Bradford, and the 42-acre Aranosian Conservation Easement in Warner, and the 51-acre Jillette Conservation Easement in Goshen. Greater details on each of these properties can be found at ausbonsargent.org. The Ausbon Sargent Land Preservation Trust now proudly protects 134 properties covering 10,867 acres in their 12-town region.