Fertile Ground USA...Celebrating the people behind the plow

Simsbury & West Granby, Connecticut -- It had rained hard most of the days before this one and thankfully the sky was blue and the sun was shining. A bus pulled into the Town Farm Dairy in Simsbury, Connecticut and then, like the calm before the storm, the air filled with the screeches of 4 dozen happy kids who clambered off the bus, ready to see something after the trip from Hartford. These kids were 3rd graders from the Michael D. Fox Elementary School in Hartford. And they wanted to see a cow.

Theresa, their tour guide, had her baby in tow and led them to the barn, a barn by the way, which had been built during the WPA era and was still intact. Theresa showed them the old fashioned stalls, then the tiny room that is their creamery. But no cows. The cows were out to pasture, as they should be. But they had left something behind.

“Poop! Is that poop? Eew, its poop! GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The kids exploded into exclamations of horror upon seeing this unholy mess right in their tracks. Each protested hard to be the most grossed out by the sight of cow excrement. They all jumped over the hardened mass as if they were dinosaurs jumping across the LaBrea tar pits, fearing the end of their lives.

That was the most exciting part of the tour for these kids, some whom were visiting a farm and seeing a cow for the first time. And with the cow, not only comes the poop but there’s the udder too, a mysterious organ no one could figure out. Upon finally petting a young calf, one girl exclaimed "is that a uterus?" Clearly, cow anatomy had not been impressed upon them. But perhaps when they returned to school they would get a better idea. This first farm field trip for the school was coordinated by Cathi Burgess, the literacy coordinator, who intends to thread their experiences today back into their reading and writing curriculum.

The next stop was the Garlic Farm in West Granby. Gary Cirullo, the owner, was ready and waiting. “Hey, what’s your name?? What’s yours?? Do you like garlic?” He kept the kids hopping, running them through the greenhouse as if they were at boot camp in the marines, asking them questions every step of the way while showing them the tomatoes, eggplant, basil and other plants in his greenhouse. Then he took them out to the garlic fields, where the beautiful green tentacles from the garlic bulbs had sprouted, waving in the wind. Soon these lovely green stems will be harvested to allow the garlic to grow big and spicy; these stems will be sold at farmers markets as garlic “scapes.” An unusual delicacy, but one to watch out for when shopping.

The kids weren’t interested in eating the garlic, they were interested in running through the fields and pulling up weeds along the way, and throwing them at each other.

Boarding the bus, Gary gave them each a pot of dirt with a garlic bulb planted way deep down. He said they weren’t too hard to grow, just plant them in the backyard and throw some water on them. Maybe this has inspired a new crop of farmers?

by melissa waldron lehner