Saving the Wike family farm

SHARON — For  most of the last century, the story of farms and farm families in the Northwest Corner was one of dislocation and disintegration. Farming was too hard and paid too few dividends. Land was sold off. Brothers and sisters moved away in search of more lucrative jobs.

That trend appears to have shifted with the dawn of this new century. Farms are once again providing a reasonable (if not exactly cushy) income for the men and women who live to till the soil and tend livestock and poultry.

And the adult children of farm families are returning from distant states, so they can work the land and so their own youngsters can grow up in the extended embrace of their relatives and their acreage.

The Wike family farm on White Hollow Road is a particularly successful example of this trend. The Humeston family, descendants of John Wike, held on to their land even as other area residents sold out and moved off.

This week, the family learned that $1 million in state and federal grants, acquired with the aid of the Connecticut Farmland Trust and Sharon Land Trust, will ensure that the 275-acre property can always remain a farm.

Keeping it all together

Life on the farm wasn’t always easy for Helen (Wike) Humeston, especially after her husband, Don, died. But she never lost her determination to hold onto the land and, if possible, someday make it a working farm again.

“We grew up knowing it was mom’s intent for the farm to stay intact,â€� said one of her two daughters, Lynn Humeston, in an interview at the family farm last  Sunday.

“Mom’s grandfather settled this land,� added daughter Donna Hoskins.

The property was purchased 140 years ago by German emmigrant John Wike and his family. Wike had five sons — who took over running the farm, as a team, in 1891, when John Wike died prematurely.

But by the 1960s the agricultural life was becoming impractical in the Northeast.

“It was no longer economically viable, in the days of the larger and larger dairy farms,� Hoskins said.

Helen and Don Humeston eventually began to rent out their acreage to other farmers, who grew hay and raised dairy cattle there. Eventually those farmers moved on, too.

The pastures, without animals to graze on them, succumbed to multiflora rosa and other invasive vines and basically disappeared.

It all began with the invasives

In 2003, Hoskins’ husband, Hank Barlow, retired from his regular job and began spending more and more (and more) time helping his mother-in-law to clear those overgrown pastures.

“She was out there trying to pull down the multiflora rosa with her bare hands,� recalled Barlow, who grew up on a dairy farm in Somers, N.Y., which is now a fully developed corner of Westchester County.

“Those pastures were so full of invasives you couldn’t walk through them,� Hoskins recalled. “So we started clearing them.�

Hoskins’ son, Ben, helped out whenever he was home from college, where he was studying criminology. Lynn Humeston helped out when she wasn’t working at Union Savings Bank as the manager.

Eventually, the fields were freed of the vines.

“Well, then we needed some livestock to graze there and keep them clear,� Hoskins said.

So the family applied for an EQUIP grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. EQUIP is an acronym for Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and Barlow believes that the intent of the grant was, at least in part, to protect the streams and ponds on the property from the animals. The money was used to build fences to keep the animals in the fields (and out of the water).

As long as they were purchasing animals to fill the pastures, the family figured it made sense to raise beef cattle. They  now sell heritage breed grass-fed beef and pork under the brand name of Barlow Beef. And they sell eggs (with exceptionally yellow yolks) from their own chickens and are raising a handful of heritage turkeys.

That’s a lot of animals, and of course they all have to be fed and cared for. Hank Barlow and Ben Hoskins came in for the Sunday interview covered in grime, after a morning spent gathering hay.

On other days they are out collecting eggs, feeding the cattle, fixing fences, clearing yet more land and doing relatively mundane outdoor chores such as mowing the lawn — which is made considerably harder by the numerous fruit trees sprinkled around the property.

“When the branches are loaded with fruit, they hit you in the head as you try to mow under them,� Barlow grumbled. Ben nodded in agreement, his face a mixture of irritation and resignation.

And now, the next generation

The fruit trees were planted by Ben’s father but have come under the purview of Colin Malone, who is married to Hoskins’ daughter, Rebecca. The Malones recently moved here from Florida with their baby (4-month-old Finian) because, Rebecca says, “We wanted Finian to grow up on the farm.�

Like nearly everyone else in the group, Malone isn’t just an apple and stone-fruit farmer. He is pursuing a master’s degree in entymology (insects and bugs). His wife is a nurse at Sharon Hospital. Ben studied criminology. Humeston has her job at the bank. Hoskins is a psychiatric nurse practitioner with Connecticut Mental Health Specialists.

“We all have other jobs,� Hoskins said. “Farming isn’t a job. It’s a way of life.�

A cushion to protect the farm

The new federal and state funds won’t allow everyone to retire to full-time farming. But the money will provide a cushion so that essential repairs can be done when needed and so that a bad year for the crops won’t create a financial crisis.

The grant money will come to the family in exchange for a conservation easement on the property. The total package is not yet complete. The Sharon Land Trust is working now to raise an additional $331,000.

It took about two years to get the state and federal package of $1.1 million, according to Elisabeth Moore of the Connecticut Farmland Trust, who was instrumental in locking in  the grants.

Hank Barlow and Donna Hoskins had approached Moore after attending a workshop she led on protecting and preserving farmland. They decided to try and get a conservation easement in place.

Although the process was slow, it was well worth the effort, all the parties agree.

“The Wike farm is on the most scenically beautiful stretch of White Hollow Road,� said Larry Power, who is president of the Sharon Land Trust. “By protecting it, we are creating environmental connections to other nearby protected spaces including Roy Swamp, Housatonic Forest, the Miles Wildlife Sanctuary of Sharon Audubon and the Land Trust’s holdings on Red Mountain. It enhances wildlife corridors and protects one of Sharon’s largest and oldest family farms.�

The property also has substantial frontage on White Hollow Road, he said. If the farm was split into parcels and sold for homes, it would probably be worth about three times as much money — “but it would irrevocably change the character of that valley,� Power said.

At the Wike farm, all financial decisions are made by the family members as a team. Once they receive the money, they said, their first priority will be to fix the roofs on the old red barns next to the original farmhouse, on Eggleston road.

“To put a roof on a barn is ridiculously expensive,� Hoskins sighed.

Other repairs will be made as needed, but much of the money will be set aside for the proverbial rainy days that seem to come more frequently for farmers. This year, for example, has been a tough one.

“We lost most of our hay because there was so much rain,� Barlow said. “Because of that, we had to sell off a third of our cows, at a big loss. We had 45, now we’re down to 33.�

Such pragmatic decisions will no doubt always be a part of the farm life. But now, at least, there will be some money in the bank so the farm “will never be a burden to any one member of the family.�