As we prepare for the 2025 growing season at our two food pantry gardens, we’ve spent time reflecting on the past year—celebrating the lessons learned, the tasks completed, the challenges met (and some unmet), and, of course, the wonderful volunteers who helped make it all happen! More than just growing vegetables, the garden is becoming a powerful tool for building connections, creating partnerships, and demonstrating how conservation benefits everyone in our communities.

This summer I’m interning with the Upper Valley Land Trust as a seasonal land steward! As a steward, my day-day changes a lot: sometimes you can find me in the office going over files and writing reports and on other days I’ll be out in the woods monitoring a property. I’ve had the opportunity to walk with a few landowners which has been wonderful, but usually my only company is me, myself, and I. Unless of course you count deer, squirrels, chipmunks, birds, an endless amount of bugs… oh and bears. Maybe it’s just an intern’s bad luck or this summer is a bear’s paradise, but I’ve already had a few encounters with our fuzzy black mammal friends. Because of this I thought I’d freshen up on my knowledge of ursus americanus.

The tornado that crossed the conserved Clay Brook buffer and fields north of Whipple Hill Road in Lyme was a rare weather occurrence that had significant impact within a narrow corridor. It's amazing that there were no injuries to people. And though as many as 1,000 trees may have been broken, twisted or blown over, natural disturbances like this can breathe life and health into the forest ecosystem. We’ll be watching and learning as the forest evolves.