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agriculture

Children tour Hotchkiss’ Fairfield Farm, meet chickens

Children tour Hotchkiss’ Fairfield Farm, meet chickens

Children gather outside the chicken coop during a tour of The Hotchkiss School’s Fairfield Farm on Friday, July 10.

Patrick L. Sullivan

LAKEVILLE –A group of parents and curious children took a guided tour of The Hotchkiss School’s Fairfield Farm Friday, July 10 to learn how vegetables are grown using sustainable farming practices and to see the chickens in a program sponsored by the Scoville Memorial Library.

Farm Manager Bridget Lawrence-Meigs, carrying her daughter Alana, and the library’s Kyla DeRisi got the children started creating artwork with construction paper, glue and dried beans.

Cousins Wynter Landau and Jack and Charlotte Swanner took to this activity with enthusiasm, using plenty of glue.

The completed artworks were put on paper plates to dry, and the group of 16 headed off to see the farm.

The children were anxious to see animals. Lawrence-Meigs explained that apart from the occasional cow in a nearby field, the farm does not have a lot of livestock. Except for the chickens.

She explained that this batch of chickens was still young and had just recently been transferred to a large coop.

She cautioned the youngsters to be quiet, as loud noises disturb the chickens, and not to touch the fencing around the coop until she turned off the electrified part.

En route to the coop the group stopped by an unmowed area, dominated by milkweed and meant as a haven for monarch butterflies, bobolinks and kestrels.

Then it was chicken time. The children raced to the coop but heeded the warning about the electric fence.

The children suggested names for the chickens. “Henry” was popular. The chickens didn’t seem to mind.

Back under the shade behind the farm’s Grange building, the children admired their now-dry artworks and ate fresh cucumber slices.

Fairfield Farm was established in 2008 under the direction of Charlie Noyes. The farm grows 35,000 pounds of vegetables on 287 acres each year. Lawrence-Meigs said that 90% of that is consumed at the school’s dining hall, and 10% donated to local food pantries.

Lawrence-Meigs said she has an assistant and summer crew of five students. During the school year a larger contingent of students work on the farm.

The farm is open to the public, and there is a self-guided tour kiosk.

And if the timing is right, “We’ll probably send you home with a couple of cucumbers.”

Patrick L. Sullivan
Senior Reporter
Patrick Sullivan has been a reporter for The Lakeville Journal since 2004, covering everything from town meetings to local characters and the outdoors. He grew up in Northern Virginia but spent summers on Mount Riga in Salisbury, giving him a lifelong connection to the Northwest Corner. A graduate of Denison University, Patrick is also the author of Tangled Lines, the newspapers’ popular fly-fishing column—making The Lakeville Journal, as far as anyone knows, the only newspaper in Connecticut with a regular fly-fishing columnist. He once received a fan letter from England, which he considers sufficient evidence that his work has achieved international acclaim.
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