For Drumlin Farm, 50 years of education
LINCOLN -- The kid was puzzled by the chickens.
The elementary school boy was sure he had no connection to the odd-looking creatures, recalled Tia Pinney, who teaches about nature at Drumlin Farm.
But don't you eat chicken? asked Pinney.
''Well I eat chicken, I just don't eat real chicken," the boy said.
It's the sort of scene that has played out many times at Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary since Louise Raynor Ayer Gordon Hatheway (1876-1955) left her farm to the Massachusetts Audubon Society 50 years ago.
Hatheway, a wealthy heiress, bequeathed a large tract of land to the organization as a sanctuary for wildlife, and also requested that the society continue to operate a working farm there.
As a genteel farmer, she had hosted urban children on visits to her farm, and she had become convinced of the usefulness of introducing them to the realities of rural life.
''She had obviously realized that there was a disconnect between schoolchildren and the natural world, where their food comes from," said Kris Scopinich, education manager at Drumlin Farm. ''And that's an inspiration for us."
Drumlin Farm, off Route 117 in Lincoln, is part refuge for birds and other animals, part open space, part organic farm growing vegetables without pesticides or chemical fertilizers, and part livestock operation, where animals such as sheep, pigs, chickens, and horses are raised.
To kick off the 50th birthday celebration, Drumlin Farm is having a May Fair celebration from noon to 5 p.m. today, including a maypole dance, birthday cake, and performances by a costumed folk music group, the Revels.
Drumlin Farm staff members are also organizing a reunion Sept. 10 and 11 for current and former employees, volunteers, and program participants, and they are putting together a memory book with people's experiences with the farm.
That's potentially a lot of people. Chances are that if you went to elementary school around here during the last 30 years or so, you have been to Drumlin Farm, which saw a huge increase in school field trips during that period. It now draws about 400 school field trips a year, Scopinich said.
Former director Dan Hart recalls there were about eight kids in the summer bird camp when he arrived around the late 1970s. The number has grown to about 850 today, Scopinich said.
Christy Foote-Smith, the current director, estimates that about 100,000 people a year visit Drumlin Farm nowadays, and farm staff reach another 25,000 with traveling education programs.
''Literally, hundreds of thousands of kids and families have been through here and have had an experience they otherwise might not have had, connecting with nature," Foote-Smith said.
''I think Drumlin Farm's biggest impact, because its biggest attraction is to young families, is getting children connected to land, with earth, with environment, with wildlife at an early age, through experiences that are fun for them," said former assistant director Stacy Miller. ''And they don't forget. There's something magic about the place, and kids connect with it very quickly."
Education can include profound experiences such as the time a few years ago when livestock manager Caroline Malone woke up children in the summer camp early one morning so they could witness a cow giving birth.
It can also be basic, as a sampling of recollections shows.
''We had a student ask what kind of a chicken is a duck?" Miller said.
Or: ''I remember a woman asking, how do they nurse the chicks?"' she recalled.
Or the time a worker was dispensing sausage to visitors when a woman asked if it was ''to feed the pig." It is the pig, was the answer given to the startled woman.
Or the time a woman asked Pinney how eggs at the farm would hatch if there were no electricity for an incubator. You can use either an incubator or a hen, Pinney told her. ''And she looks at me and says, 'Would a hen work?' "
In addition to schoolchildren and incredulous adults, Drumlin Farm has attracted a fair number of characters over the years.
Hart, now retired, recalled that for several years around the late 1970s a man in his early 30s would periodically tote a saxophone on an old three-speed bicycle from his home in Cambridge to Drumlin Farm, where he would stand outside the shed where the pigs were and play blues.
''He would serenade the pigs," Hart said. ''He just said he liked pigs, and he liked them to hear good music."
A fire in November 1980 destroyed much of a barn Hatheway had had built, killing a cow. In the aftermath, Hart said, staff members drove much of the livestock across Route 117 and up Codman Road to Codman Community Farm, which cared for the animals until Drumlin Farm staff were ready to take care of them again.
It was the sort of volunteer spirit that imbued the place during that period, Hart said, as neighbors and other farmers routinely helped out with haying and other needs. The staff was smaller then, and staff members were frequently called upon seven days a week to pitch in with tasks.
''There was a camaraderie. It was a real family affair," Hart said. ''It turned a tiny bit corporate over time, but that family feeling still lingers on."
The fair is from noon to 5 p.m. today. Tickets for nonmembers are $18 for adults, $13 for children. For more information about the September reunion, send an e-mail to drumlinfarm@massaudubon.org. 