Land Savers Vol. 26, Issue 1 - February 2023

BOARD

OF TRUSTEES

Robert C. Mountcastle, President

J. Ross Wimmer, CPA, Treasurer

Fiona M. Tower, Secretary

A. Sidney Barritt III, MD

Dominic M. Basile

Helen A. Burnett

William Hunley

Sonja A. Ingram

Lowell F. Inhorn, MD

David C. Jones, DDS

Wendy W. Kendrick

Susan E. McSwain

Hunter Naff

Ann Bondurant Trinkle

STAFF

David C. Perry, Executive Director

Emily R.H. Bender, Assistant Director

Tina L. Badger, Project Manager

Kacie E. Shifflett, Stewardship Specialist

Chris Holdren, SVALC Program Manager

Kyle Simpson, CVALC Program Manager

The Lemon House

1305 Maple Avenue SW

Roanoke, VA 24016

540-985-0000

FROM THE DIRECTOR

We should talk more often!

In lieu of some inspiring prose about saving the great outdoors, let’s talk business.

Newsletters take a lot of time, money and effort to put together. There’s the time the staff spends interviewing landowners, taking pictures and writing the stories. Then a graphic designer has to design the newsletter, which involves a few rounds of edits. Finally, it goes to the printer, which has to print and mail several hundred copies to folks across Virginia.

The end result is that we don’t get to share with you all the good stuff your support is accomplishing across southwest, central and Southern Virginia nearly often enough! We’re aiming to fix that. This issue of Land Savers is the first of a shorter format that will hit your mailboxes more often—every other month, to be exact.

We hope we can make Land Savers a more manageable project on our end, and get the latest news in your hands on a more regular basis.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer at least a little inspiring prose, so here it is: Well done!

You are making incredible things happen all around us. Thanks to your support, family farms that have been under plow and under hoof for decades, even centuries, are protected forever. Mountainsides will stay green and lush, providing clean air and habitat for wildlife. Mountain streams run colder and rivers run cleaner. Our views will be less cluttered when our children take their children on Sunday drives (in electric cars).

And it’s because of what you’re doing right now. So, good job! And look to your every-other-month issue of Land Savers to see us saying “thank you” more often.

Dave David Perry Executive Director

WELCOME

The BRLC would like to welcome their newest staff member! Kacie Shifflett, a Rockbridge County, VA native, is the conservancy’s new Stewardship Specialist. Kacie has a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Hollins University and recently completed her thru hike of the Appalachian Trail. She is excited to expand her education in land conservation and to draw from her passion for the outdoors to help conserve land here in our region.

Says Kacie, “I am thrilled to be part of such an amazing team and to work with a community of people that has a common goal of protecting land. After hiking through a near continuous corridor of conserved and undeveloped land for almost 2,200 miles, I have a much deeper appreciation for what it means to landowners, the public, and wildlife to have sanctuaries of protected forests, fields, and waterways. I am so grateful to now be part of an organization that works every day to protect land and encourages others to do the same. I am excited to meet each of our landowners and to preserve land together.”

We protect the lands and waters you love, forever.

Dave Perry

MeMber of:

Land Savers United, doing business in your community as the Blue Ridge, Central or Southern Virginia Land Conservancy, is accredited by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission, a mark of distinction in land conservation.

Cover photo: Skunk cabbage blossom by Kacie Shifflet

Conserving a Wildlife oasis in the Viewshed of

Avariety of wildlife including snapping turtles, a blue heron, cottontail rabbits, and a black bear have found a haven in Nelson County. And they aren’t the only ones! Following his time serving as a Hospital Corpsman in the Navy during the Vietnam War, Ken Fischer worked in the Labs at Massachusetts General Hospital. One of his coworkers at the hospital moved back to her home in Waynesboro and invited Ken and his wife, Janice, to visit. Within a few years of visiting that coworker, Ken and Janice made their home on 50-plus acres in Afton, in October of 1989.

The combination of wildlife and history on the property made Ken and Janice fall in love with their new home. It is also what made them want to protect the property forever through the use of a conservation easement with Central Virginia Land Conservancy (CVaLC). Emily Bender, the Assistant Director at CVaALC, states that, “CVaLC has been excited to work with the Fischers to protect their beautiful property since the project was started earlier this year. This easement will ensure that part of the view

the Appalachian Trail and Blue Ridge Parkway

by EC Myers at Conservation Partners

from the Appalachian Trail and Blue Ridge Parkway is protected forever!”

The Lynchburg-based land trust suggested the Fischers reach out to Conservation Partners to help them assemble a quality team to assist them through their easement donation process. Ken spoke very highly about everyone working on their easement, from his attorney and his appraiser to the staff at CVaLC and Conservation Partners. “Everyone I’ve met has been a pleasure. I thought to myself ‘I want them all to be my friends even after the process is complete.”

From their portrait window in the sitting room, the couple can watch rabbits, deer, songbirds, wild turkeys, butterflies, and the occasional black bear enjoying the meadow. The cozy front porch provides a view of these and other animals exploring the property’s mixed hardwood forest. In the woods, Ken enhanced the spring-fed wetlands by digging a quarter acre pond, and the Green Treefrogs, American Bullfrogs, and Spring Peepers that have made their home here make their happiness well known with their joyous croaks.

If you were to follow one of the paths up from the pond, through the open space, you would find the prime viewpoint on the property–the gazebo Ken crafted by himself (bringing in a few friends only to help him move it to perch on the top of the hill). The gazebo was built just outside of the old barn, containing three milking stalls and two mule stalls, which

Ken has repurposed as his woodshop, filling it with cherry, walnut, maple, and more.

While preserving the natural beauty of the property, the Fischers have made the property their own by growing a beautiful garden with a particularly prolific fig tree and by adorning their home with Janice’s detailed knitted hangings and Ken’s handcrafted furniture. The original Chestnut log cabin, also handcrafted, is preserved as the living room of the Fischers’ home, which was built to encompass the original structure. Nobody is certain how old the cabin is, but based on assessment records, it could date from the 1830s.

It makes perfect sense that when E.C. asked Ken and Janice why they haven’t traveled abroad since they applied for their passports years ago, they replied, “Why would we go somewhere else when we have this right here?”

Conservation Partners works with landowners to help protect the land they love forever! Our experienced staff assists Virginians by collaborating with land trusts and professional advisors to expedite and simplify the multi-faceted conservation easement donation process. We work with landowners throughout the entire process, including the registration, marketing, and sales of the Land Preservation Tax Credits that are associated with their high-quality conservation easement donations. Give us a call today to see how we can help you conserve your land! 540-464-1899.

Appalachian Mountains from the property.

Ken Fischer and Selkie stand at the base of the meadow that rises to the gazebo, the best viewpoint on the property.

EC Myers

REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

Central Virginia Land Conservancy

by Kyle Simpson

CVALC ended 2022 with four new easements in the service area totaling some 640 acres. Several easements are already well underway in the current year, with just under 5,000 acres protected in all. On April 22nd, CVALC will host the first annual Cornerstone Celebration at the Claytor Nature Center, celebrating the group’s 20th anniversary. Please plan to join us for food, music, and a great time as we celebrate the volunteers and landowners who have brought us this far. Details at CVALC.org/events. If you have questions about a conservation easement in the CVALC service area please reach out to Kyle at 434-942-4320 or ksimpson@cvalc.org.

Blue Ridge Land Conservancy

Here at BRLC we had an exciting end to 2022 and hope you did too! Our new Stewardship Specialist, Kacie Shifflett, started in December and we have been glad to have her as part of our team!

Kacie has been taking advantage of the warmer January days to get a good head start on our easement monitoring for the year. She is pictured here from her monitoring visit on Mill Mountain.

by Emily Bender

As 2022 wrapped up we were hard at work finalizing easements for the year. Your support helped protect a beautiful forested property along Wilson Creek (Botetourt County) and farmland in the Catawba Valley (Roanoke County)! We have more exciting easement projects in the works, so stay tuned to hear about more protected properties throughout the year.

If you have any questions about a conservation easement, or are interested in protecting your land, please reach out to our office at 540985-0000 ext. 2 or email ebender@brlcva.org.

Southern Virginia Land Conservancy

by Chris Holdren

Fresh air, warmer weather and blooming flowers. What’s not to love about spring? I hope this newsletter finds you as excited about spring as we are here at Southern Virginia Land Conservancy. We are looking forward to getting out and catching up with familiar faces as we get a jump on our yearly monitoring visits. Along with these current easements visits we are looking forward to a dedication ceremony taking place this spring for a gorgeous piece of property that was donated both jointly with Henry County Parks and Recreation and the Southern Virginia Land Conservancy. This property will allow for extension of the Dick & Willie trail while providing other recreational opportunities to the citizens of Martinsville City and the surrounding Henry County area. As always we look forward to helping the citizens of Southside VA with their Conservation efforts. If you have questions about a conservation easement in the SVALC service area please reach out to Chris at 276-224-6489 or choldren@svalc.org.

Kyle Simpson

Emily Bender

Chris Holdren