Another Edge of another Cranberry Garden?

Many Thanks to Karen in Killingworth

for bringing the bog to my attention

     A little surprise (to me) on one of the cranberriest days of the year in modern America was finding out about a Cranberry Bog in Killingworth CT. A little bigger surprise was the fact that a controlled burn was done to improve or maintain the 'bog."

"On November 22, 2003, we tried something a bit unique for a land trust.  We organized a prescribed burn for sections of the Pond Meadow bog...Why burn the bog?  Well, part of our job as stewards of this area is to keep down the growth of woody vegetation and invasive plants that compete with the bog plants that make this habitat special.  In the past we have done this by mowing and hand-weeding.  A controlled burn could achieve the same results, possibly better, with less effort.

We chose three test areas to burn so we could see the impact this measure of maintenance would have. 

From the onset, our biggest concern lay more in the scenario of the bog not burning than in the fire getting out of control.  However, we were more than well covered to prevent the latter.  The day was sunny and dry, and we were optimistic.  But as it turned out, most of the area did not burn as vigorously as we had hoped.  The test area with the highest concentration of orchids did burn fairly well and we marked it off to gauge the effect next spring..."

From:  https://www.killingworthlandconservationtrust.org/cranberry-bogs.html

So of course I'm going to wonder about Indigenous stonework, the Ceremonial Stone Landscape that just might be related to cranberries and a method of control for the Indigenous fires as well as possibly the control of water - and of course I'll have to compare it a Cranberry Garden I know of about 10 miles north of where I live.

I don't know if I'll ever get my feet wet in Killingworth (access is restricted), but maybe someone sometime might get a chance to. All I can do is locate the LiDar and wonder about what appears to suggest "stone walls" at the edge of the Pond Meadow Bog:

  I'd look for CSL stone features there, because elsewhere I've found, on the edge of a place called a Cranberry Swamp on the map:  There’s a lowest row of stones, it turns out, long unmaintained and sometimes hidden in tree debris or ferns as well as the sphagnum moss that is often found growing along with the cranberry. I walked along it a little, on the drier side mostly, looking for some of that Indigenous Iconography that whispers to me that this is a Native American stone feature, a stone border of one of the world’s largest gardens that is now known as New England, this one surrounding what I almost called a cranberry bog but is really a Cranberry Garden.

There are a few entrances into the swampy zone at the first terrace - breaks in the row of stones - that suggest what one might call a Serpent Gateway in the petroform fuel break that adds a layer of spiritual protection from fires (set by lightening shot from the eyes of Thunder Beings?) and fits well with the concept of a Sacred Indigenous Ceremonial Stone Landscape."

There's a good deal of white quartz and Quartzite in the rows of stones - "stone walls" that seem to suggest an enclosure, perhaps a fire proof barrier, around the swamp:

- but I also came across some larger triangular, often flat topped,

 white quartz boulders at some of the entrances. 

This is one:

Like many other similar boulders at similar places in similar rows of stones,

there is sometimes something suggestive of an eye present.

An overlaid Eastern Timber Rattlesnake eye,

brings the image "alive," just as creating this effigy brought it alive,

giving it the power to control Renewal Fires on either side:

After a stretch of stacked stones:

Another quartz boulder entrance: 

This last one very much resembles another along a stream that flows into Cranberry Swamp, much higher up on the hill above it:

Head twisted slightly to the side, I'll add some overlay just to make the Uktena-like Snake come to life at another break in another enclosure or Qusukqaniyutôk:

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2016/04/cranberry-garden-edge.html
Even more Cranberry: https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/search?q=cranberry