Bush Hill Preserve

I started my hike from the Cider Mill Barn at the main entrance.  The barn is the former farm store/gift shop and I’m sure at some point cider mill, but today is filled to the brim with a huge variety of tag sale items available for sale to raise funds for the land trust.  I ended up exploring the barn for at least an hour finding treasure after treasure.  The tag sale is run by volunteers and open daily in May though I’m unsure of the hours the rest of the year.

Back to the hiking, following the road behind the barn leads you past a well maintained field with a picnic pavilion and the start of the Story Book walk.  You could take a left at the corner here to jump on the blue blaze trail or continue down the road to reach the white.  The road passes a good sized goat pen where a sign says you can feed the goats any fresh produce you have brought them but not clippings from anything nearby.

The white trail soon leaves the gravel roadway and climbs up the 318ft Bush Hill which has its own geodetic survey marker. The white trail then descends down the other side through thick forest and took the optional Lavender side trail to Gretz Pond.  There is a nice bench here and I sat for a bit watching the turtles and frogs sunning themselves.  I tried to follow the trail around the pond, but one side was too flooded to pass without getting wet shoes.

Working back to the white trail continues to the forest, reenters the main field and the continues mixing woodsy trail and gravel farm roads.  Near the southern border of the property where the orange meets the white trail is a town line marker for Glastonbury/Manchester complete with big explainer signboard.  I hopped on the blue trail which crosses and unnamed stream right at the edge of the Rolling Woods subdivision before working back through thick woods  along the power lines back to the picnic pavilion.