The D&R Greenway announces that St. Michaels Farm Preserve via Aunt Molly Road is open. Aunt Molly Road in Hopewell offers two lesser-known access points to the stunning, 400-acre St. Michaels Farm Preserve, an expanse of farm fields and forests on the edge of Hopewell Borough, preserved in 2010 and expanded in 2017.
The parking lots provide access to trails on the east and west of Aunt Molly Road. To the west, visitors can see hotel-style purple martin birdhouses from the Charles Evans Overlook. To the east, the trail follows Beden’s Brook and features a cedar forest, shale barrens, and a glade-like ecosystem with herbaceous plants.
“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
– Wendell Berry
You can find many more wonderful preserves on D&R’s website. During this difficult time they are reminding our community of the power of nature to health and renew spirits.
IMPORTANT: Remember social distancing – 6 feet for low-risk groups, and 10 feet for high-risk groups (age 60 and/or with underlying health condition). If the parking lot is full, be extra careful to maintain social distancing. We all are in need of the outdoors for our health and well-being.
Submitted by D&R Greenway.
