Author Archives: Eileen Samberg

Annual SOLF Appeal 2022

Open space, with fields and woods, streams, and wetlands, greatly enhances our quality of life here in Southborough, providing diverse habitat and quiet woodland trails. As Fall arrives, the Southborough Open Land Foundation (SOLF) Board is excited to share with you some of our accomplishments from this past year.

  • Working with the Open Space Preservation Commission to establish a native plant pollinator garden at Beals Preserve
  • Sponsoring the 6th Annual Art on the Trails at Beals Preserve
  • Creating a small parking area in the Main Street Field at Beals Preserve for
    safer access to the property
  • Working with volunteers to clear invasive plants and improve trails at Beals
    Preserve, Bigelow Wildlife Refuge, and Clark Grove
  • Running a successful challenge to help fund the newly created Linda Hubley
    Memorial Town Scholarship
  • Holding our annual meeting with well-known naturalist Peter Alden as the
    featured speaker

Your support is essential to helping us keep up this positive momentum. Now that we are again able to meet in person, we are eager to resume offering some nature-based programs. Please consider a tax-deductible contribution to support our efforts that help make Southborough such an attractive and unique community.

SOLF is a private, non-profit 501 (c)(3) land trust that serves the citizens of Southborough. Since our founding in 1988, we have preserved nearly 200 acres of land. SOLF does not receive any tax-based support from the town or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Trustees of SOLF

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Cub Scout Pack 1 Service Projects at Beals Preserve and Templeman

On Sunday, November 20, Cub Scout Pack 1 learned about and practiced trail maintenance at two of our properties, Beals Preserve and Templeman Woods.

The older Cub Scouts and their parents worked with Board members Brett Peters and Larry Samberg at Templeman Woods-Watkins Woods off Rt. 85 by the Mass Pike overpass. With some hard work, they improved trail conditions through addition of new trail markers, clearing limbs and other trail blockages, enhancing trail sight lines, and cleaning up trash and litter from the area.  Big thanks to the Scouts and parents who stepped up to help out!

The younger Cub Scouts and their parents worked with Board members Whit Beals, Debbie Costine, Lawrence Spezzano, and Eileen Samberg at Beals Preserve, starting at the Red Gate entrance. The Scouts learned about the importance of water bars to channel water off the trail, and helped clear them. Then the group walked down the trail to the Riding Ring junction, where they learned about invasives, pulled bittersweet and small buckthorn and burning bush saplings, watched and helped Whit Beals use a “puller bear” to pull larger buckthorn and burning bush saplings out by their roots. Big thanks to the Scouts and parents!

History Walk by Whit Beals on October 16, 2022

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Whitney Beals, president of the Southborough Open Land Foundation (SOLF), led a group of about sixteen on a history walk at the Elaine and Philip Beals Preserve on Sunday, October 16 , 2022.

In the 1950s, Whit’s family purchased land on both Chestnut Hill north of route 30 and what is now the Beals Preserve south of route 30. You can read his entertaining and educational talk, describing the land purchase, the conservation restrictions to save the land from development, the history of the ice pond, and plans to maintain the trails, the forest, and the meadows.

You can read a transcript of his talk here.

Whit by the Ice Pond
The small field by the Ice Pond
Along the Main Lane
The bridge over the aqueduct

History Walk at Beals Preserve on Sunday, October 16 at 10 am

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Join Whitney Beals and the Southborough Open Land Foundation (SOLF) for a history walk at the Elaine and Philip Beals Preserve on Sunday, October 16 at 10 am. President Whitney Beals will walk and talk about the history of the property. Meet at the kiosk on the south side of the aqueduct. Sign up at the SOLF booth at Heritage Day or send email to info@solf.org to let SOLF know that you are planning to attend. Note there is now a parking lot on Route 30 Main Street. To get directions, more parking information, and a map for Beals Preserve, go to on https://solf.org/beals-preserve/.

Beals Preserve Main Street Field Parking Area

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We are happy to announce that there is now a small parking area at the Beals Preserve Main Street Field on Route 30. The entrance to the parking area is on the south side of Main Street, between two stone pillars, east of Northborough Road and west of Chestnut Hill Road. Pull into the fenced area (it is currently grass, but will likely be layered with wood chips), and park perpendicular to the road at the stone wall, to the right of the sign post. Walk down the field through the opening in the fence to the lane and then across the bridge over the Wachusett channel.

Entrance
Parking
Walk down to the lane

Beals Preserve Clean-up on September 11, 2022

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SOLF trustees and volunteers worked for a few hours Saturday morning September 11 to spruce up the primary entrance of the Beals Preserve: around the kiosk and bridge on the old farm lane that goes down from Main Street. We did this to properly welcome and accommodate the visitors attending the closing and poetry reading of the annual Art on the Trails on September 12.

Bigelow Wildlife Refuge Progress Report – September 2022

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As of August 2022, there is now just off-road parallel parking available for one or two cars on a cleared wood-chip area. Please do not park on Bigelow Road as it has no shoulder and parking is not allowed in the turn-around at the end of Bigelow Road. (Alternatively, visitors can drive to Walker Street in Westborough and park at the SVT Sawink Farm parking lot. From the lot, it’s a 1400-foot walk along the old farm road to Bigelow Road and the entrance to Bigelow Wildlife Refuge.)

One of the challenges at Bigelow Wildlife Refuge is control of knotweed, primarily at the front of the property. Another is maintaining the trail to the viewing platform. Trustee Lawrence Spezzano has been instrumental in overseeing and organizing work projects. In the spring of 2022, Lawrence laid down wire mesh to slow the growth of knotweed and over time may stop the growth. In July 2022, a work party — Lawrence Spezzano, Whit Beals, Larry Samberg, Eileen Samberg, Kathryn Korostoff — weeded the front and the path, and spread a thick layer of wood chips.

Knotweed mesh
Weeding
Wood chips spread over the mesh on both sides of the path
Wood chip layer
Entrance to the path
Lawrence at the sign

Become a Volunteer for SOLF

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Do you have an interest in working to help the greater cause of land conservation in Southborough? Consider volunteering/stewarding for the Southborough Open Land Foundation on one or more of our fifteen properties – keeping trails clear and controlling invasive species. Message us through our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/SouthboroughOpenLandFoundation or email us at info@solf.org.