Category Archives: News

Clark University Volunteers Experience Farm Life at Woolapalooza

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Staff

Our special events wouldn’t be possible without our enthusiastic volunteers. In order to ensure that all of our visitors have a wonderful time, we need volunteers who can help out with arts and crafts, food, and anything else that might be happening on that day.

What’s it like to volunteer at one of our events? At Woolapalooza, which took place this past March, volunteers from Clark University helped out along our Sheep-to-Sweater trail, where hundreds of visitors learned how wool is used for textiles!

We had the chance to speak with Lizzie, Grant, Kendrick, Azal, and Olivia (who had never been to Drumlin Farm until Woolapalooza!) about their experience.

What made you want to volunteer?

Olivia: We all shared a common desire to have our volunteer project be outdoors and more hands-on. We also love to work with children and being in nature, so this opportunity seemed just right. It also gave us a chance to explore off-campus and make connections while contributing to the community!

What was your favorite moment?

Lizzie: Receiving news that lamb triplets were born and watching children run over to see them! I also enjoyed the look of fascination on their faces when they learned about carding and washing.

Grant: When the same kid, who really enjoyed our station, returned three times throughout the day just to watch us do it again and to do it himself. He got so much excitement out of it!

Which activity did you like the most?

Azal: Everything was awesome! As a person living an urban lifestyle, going to this event was refreshing. I hope more of the younger generations would volunteer their time or just visit farms to explore new things in life and have fun outside in nature!

Kendrick: I loved the food at Woolapalooza! The lamb chili was the best I’ve ever had in my life.

Thank you to our volunteers who made Woolapalooza so special this year!

If you’re interested in volunteering, contact Pam Sowizral at 781-259-2205 or by email.

Cape Cod Birding Trip Recap

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Staff

Story by Strickland Wheelock, Kathy Seymour, and Tia Pinney

Photo by Bruce Black

What an amazing trip to Cape Cod! Thanks to wonderful weather, we enjoyed close views of thousands of pelagic birds from shore, and 2 mega rarities: the Mountain Bluebird and Western Kingbird. All in all, we saw 81 species over the weekend!

Our trip highlight was undoubtedly Race Point at dawn. As the sun rose, a constant parade of Razorbills, Black-legged Kittiwakes, Bonaparte’s Gulls, Northern Gannets, and Manx, Great and Sooty Shearwaters passed by close to shore. The birds were drawn to shore in a feeding frenzy, allowing scope views of birds both flying and resting in the water. The volume of individuals allowed a rare opportunity to practice identification of these pelagic species.

Photo by Bruce Black

Incredible rafts of sea ducks were present along the coast, with many hundreds of Common Eider, and Surf, White-winged, and Black Scoters. They were joined by Red-throated and Common Loons, Red-necked Grebes and a few Iceland Gulls. Local ponds gave us an opportunity to compare ducks that prefer sheltered waters, such as Northern Pintail, Lesser and Greater Scaup, Ring-necked Duck, American Wigeon, Gadwall, Hooded Merganser and Ruddy Duck. A Black Guillemot at MacMillan Wharf in Provincetown was a nice surprise.

Our Saturday afternoon vista from Fort Hill was awe-inspiring, with golden light illuminating a vast expanse of marsh, mudflat and creek where we found Brant, shorebirds and more than 20 Great Blue Heron. A Merlin teed up near the parking lot and provided a rare opportunity for extended scope views. A Mountain Bluebird drew us to the grasslands at Crane WMA, where we also had Eastern Meadowlark, sparrows and other songbirds. Inside information led us directly to the Western Kingbird at the Historical Society building across from the Cape Cod National Seashore Visitor Center, and we all had plenty of time to enjoy this striking bird.

Thank you to everyone who joined us on this unforgettable trip! For more information about our birding trips, be sure to check out our program catalog.

Fall Recipe Inspiration from our Fall Harvest Feast

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Staff

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Photo by Ian Maclellan

For those of you who came to the Fall Harvest Feast over Columbus Day weekend, we can’t thank you enough for joining us for such a memorable evening! As the sun dipped beneath the horizon on that mild night, everyone came inside to the Nature Center to enjoy a hearty pizza feast, complete with a crackling fire to keep us all warm.

And whether or not you came, we just wanted to show you our appreciation by sharing with you some of the recipes we used for that night! Feel free to print these on an index card and add to your recipe box.

Moon Over Drumlin in Pictures

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Staff

We could write a short story on all of the amazing things that happened during this year’s Moon Over Drumlin. There was Sally and her students from the Lowell Leaders in Stewardship program. There was Flavio showing our guests the ever-popular Ms. G. There was Urmi, mother of one LEAF participant, sharing the story of how Drumlin Farm has changed her son’s life. And throughout the entire evening, there were gourmet dishes from chefs who donated their time to the cause.

Thank you to everyone who made this year’s event possible!

And now, let’s allow these photos to tell the story of the night.

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All photos by Bonnie Baker Photography: www.bakerphoto.com

Introducing Drumlin Farm’s New Sanctuary Director!

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Heather

Post by Drumlin Farm Sanctuary Director Renata Pomponi

Drumlin Farm Sanctuary Director Renata Pomponi and her children

How does a physics major turned management consultant end up at a working farm and wildlife sanctuary? For me, the journey was a gradual series of life moments ending with a big leap.

Being outdoors and being curious about the world is something that has always been part of my life, starting as a child where every summer day (and most weekends throughout the year) were lived outside. Our family vacations were spent camping in the New England woods, playing in rivers and hiking mountains, with plenty of time to ask my parents a million questions about how the world works:

Why is that star in a different place than last night? What makes the river run faster in this spot? How can I tell which animals live here? Why is the landscape different as we hike to higher altitude?

Science was all around us, with opportunities to observe, hypothesize, test, and discover at every turn, and I was lucky enough to have parents who encouraged our questions and gave us time outside to search for the answers.

That thirst to make sense of the world through a scientific lens led me to MIT, where the Charles River served as a temporary outdoor playground to sail on, row over, and run along when life in the academic world seemed too overbearing. I never felt entirely at home in the lab, preferring to find the spaces in between the disciplines—how a theoretical concept could be adapted for human use, or how the technical aspects of a system could combine to form a whole greater than the sum of its parts. I came to realize that the world needs people who are able to integrate disparate pieces of information into effective systems, ones that can bring different information and perspectives together for the benefit of all.

After grad school, my work as a management consultant allowed me to help companies develop business strategies that integrated the best of their technical and organizational capabilities with market needs. And yet I still felt the pull of the outdoors. During out-of-town assignments, I would take time in the evenings to explore the parks beyond the walls of my hotel; at home on the weekends, my husband and I would go mountain biking on our favorite singletrack trails and organize summer trips to national parks.

When our two boys came along, I found the times I enjoyed most with them were spent outside, sharing the experiences of my youth and watching them take their own first steps towards curiosity and exploration. The time was right for a major change, and after much soul searching, I decided that science education for children seemed like the perfect way to combine my scientific background with my love of the outdoors. I stumbled upon a job posting for part-time Teacher Naturalists at Drumlin Farm, and when I took a walk around the property after my first interview, it looked exactly like I remembered from my own childhood visits. I had found my way home.

Eight years later, the joy of being outside and sharing my curiosity about nature with our visitors and program participants is still the highlight of each day. In my most recent role as Program Innovation Coordinator, the most satisfying moments have come when we were able to leverage tools not commonly seen at a nature center—smartphones, engineering challenges, and even LEGO bricks—to engage and educate in new ways.

As Sanctuary Director, I plan to look for the spaces in between the disciplines—in our case, the ways in which farm, nature, and people interconnect—so that Drumlin Farm can continue to be a place where children and adults are inspired to explore, discover, and think about the world in new ways. Encouraging scientific thinking and using our sanctuary as a living laboratory to develop deeper understanding of sustainability, climate change, and ecological issues will be a high priority.

I also look forward to working with our talented staff to grow our commitment to diversity and accessibility as well as our ability to serve as a model for sustainable agriculture and ecological management. Alongside this is a desire to maintain what lies at the heart of Drumlin Farm’s enduring success: the place, the programs, and the people.

I look forward to hearing reflections, questions, and ideas from the Drumlin Farm community about how we can continue to improve. Please feel free to reach out to me at any time to share your thoughts by email or phone (781-259-2201).

Thank you for your continued support in making Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary a special place for us all!

Along with lifelong farmers and educators, Drumlin Farm’s staff includes a variety transplants from other career paths, including engineering, veterinary medicine, music, sales, entrepreneurial ventures, and even podiatry! Our “Meet the Staff” series will explore the many ways that the people who work at Drumlin Farm found themselves drawn to common goals of environmental education, sustainable farming, and conservation.

Beehives Have Arrived

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Mass Audubon

Have you heard the buzz? We have six new beehives at Drumlin Farm! There are three on Boyce Field, one in the Learning Garden, one behind the Nature Center, and one in the sugar bush. On your next visit, follow this map to find them.

Hive placement

You’ll notice some are painted, while others are not. That’s because we have two different types of hives. The painted ones are called Langstroth hives—these are the traditional hive boxes that have been around since the mid-1800s. The unpainted boxes are Warre hives—a newer structure that reduces the need to disturb the bees when you want to collect honey and wax.

Langstroth Hives

Langstroth hives have frames that hang down from the top of each box, called a super. These frames have a wax layer imprinted with a comb pattern, which provides the base for bees to build the wax onto. The comb imprint encourages the bees to build slightly larger cells that can store more honey than they would if they built a hive on their own. Supers and frames can be added or removed depending on how much honey you want the bees to produce. Access to the hive is through the top super.

To collect honey from Langstroth hives, the beekeeper must put the comb into a centrifuge. The spinning motion separates the honey from the wax.

Warre Hives

Warre hives a wooden bar at the top of the super instead of hanging frames. The bar allows bees to build their own comb structure from the top down, which emulates their natural process. Additional supers are added to the bottom rather than the top, so bees are undisturbed when the beekeeper needs to add more space to the hive.

To retrieve honey, the beekeeper removes the comb and places it in a muslin cloth. The comb is crushed inside the cloth, and honey drips out into a bucket.

Our Warre hives have observation windows—feel free to take a look and watch the bees at work!

Honey

A typical hive can produce up to 200 pounds of honey per year, and requires 60-80 lbs to live through the winter. That means we could collect as much as 140 lbs per hive—that’s 840 lbs total! The bees will keep all their honey this year as the hives get established, but next year we can start collecting our honey and make it available for you to purchase.

Be on the look-out for new beekeeping and honey-related programs. We are excited to share our new project with you, and we can’t wait to taste the results!

Preparation and Planting

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Mass Audubon

Our first update of the year from Crops Manager Matt Celona gives insight into how preparations for this year’s harvest have been affected by the lingering winter.

Hello,

Traumatized by winter, and now, surprised by spring. Seventy degrees with snow loitering on the north side of barns. P1150875

We hope to do some plowing later this week, but the roads have been almost impassable, and the fields even boggier. Early last week, the only ground dry enough to work with the relatively light seedbed maker was out beyond the cattle fence in the fields we brought into rotation for the first time last year. The sod that’s still breaking down in those fields makes that soil lighter and drier than other sections of Boyce Field. It was still a challenge pulling the implement through the mud, and we caused some compaction while trying to eke out a few beds for fava beans, peas, greens, radish and spinach. It was either that or fall another week behind our seeding schedule.

We had hoped to get our first peas and greens planted in the last week of March, and with a week of rainy weather predicted, we decided to plant on Monday, April 6, rather than wait another week. We were working near the garlic patch and noticed a few garlic leaves pushing their way through the straw mulch. After seeding, we rolled row cover over the beds of arugula, Japanese white turnips, and radish to keep some heat in and flea beetles out. And by yesterday some more ground had dried allowing us to seed our first round of beets, chard, and carrots.

P1150896

Our crop plan calls for us to seed the second round of peas this week, but we will delay that by one week to create some space between the pea successions—we wouldn’t be able to harvest all those peas if they ripened together. But the concern is that the later peas (peas and fava beans grow best at cool temperatures) will go past too quickly in the warmer temperatures of late June. If it’s a cool summer, we might not notice the difference.

Today we are removing straw from the strawberries and spreading fertilizer before tomorrow’s predicted rain. Later in the week, we’ll move the seed potatoes out of the greenhouse where they’ve been warming to the cooler loft of the Service Barn for sprouting in the light. You’ll soon see the first trays of lettuce and scallions out on the cold frame in preparation for transplanting to the field. This week, volunteer Anne Patterson will be seeding tomatoes, flowers, and broccoli in the greenhouse. 4.10.09 005

See you in the field,

Your farmers

The best way to enjoy the bounty of our harvest is through the Summer CSA, beginning in early-June. Find out more and sign up today!

The Syrup Report

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Mass Audubon

Though the sugaring season is off to a late start, we are finally running the evaporator and bottling maple syrup. Our evaporator will be running most afternoons until the sap stops flowing—you are welcome to stop by the Pond House to learn more about the history and process of maple sugaring. You might even get to taste a little sap!

#Evap 1

Numbers to Date

Gallons of Sap Collected: 857

Gallons of Syrup Bottled: ~20

Finished maple syrup is available for sale at the admissions window. Bring home some New England tradition!

#Maple Syrup

The 60th Anniversary Pennant Project

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Mass Audubon

Drumlin Farm Turns 60 This Year!

DF60_color Sixty years ago, Louise Hatheway donated her farm to Mass Audubon so that families could continue to visit a working farm and learn about where food comes from and how farms contribute to the larger Massachusetts ecosystem. Since then Drumlin Farm has carried on Mrs. Hatheway’s vision, connecting thousands of visitors to farm and nature every year.

To celebrate 60 years of Drumlin Farm memories, we are asking our visitors to help us with the Pennant Project! We want to decorate the sanctuary with memories that are important to you. Whether you treasure the first time you saw an owl up-close during a school program, or you look forward to coming back time after time to watch the lambs grow up every spring, we want to showcase all the reasons you love Drumlin Farm.

The Pennant Project

Help us paint the sanctuary with Drumlin memories! At special events throughout the year, we will have a pennant station set up. You can decorate your pennant anyway you’d like—with words, pictures, or any other way you can think of to show us what you love about coming to Drumlin Farm. Here are some examples to get your creative juices flowing:

Once you’ve completed your pennant, we will add it to our collection, attach it to a cord with other pennants, and string it up somewhere on the sanctuary! Be sure to visit us again to find your pennant in the barns, in classroom spaces, or at the Farmstand.

Your next opportunities to participate in The Pennant Project are Woolapalooza on March 28 and Dairy Day on June 13. We hope you will share your love of Drumlin Farm with us and with other visitors to help us celebrate 60 years of nature, education, and community.

Lambs and Kids Welcome Warm Weather

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Mass Audubon

The babies have arrived! Lambing and kidding season has officially begun in the Drumlin Farm Crossroads and Sheep & Goat barns. These adorable new members of the farmyard arrived just in time to enjoy the first mild breezes of spring last week.

Our first two ram lambs were born in the early morning hours of March 10, followed by one ewe on March 13 and a ram and ewe born in the afternoon on March 14. There are 13 more pregnant ewes, so visit often over the next few weeks to keep up with all the new additions. Soon the Crossroads Barn will be full of these tiny fuzzballs!

All of this season’s goat kids have arrived, and are frolicking playfully in the Sheep & Goat Barn. The first three came in late January, born during the second blizzard of the season. Now at about 6 weeks old, they’ve been joined by four more kids—two born March 11 and two born March 15.

One of the older kids, born in January, came over to greet his new pen-mates!

As more and more lambs join our barns, we are preparing for our annual fiber celebration, Woolapalooza, on March 28. Be sure to check the website for ticket and parking details for this fun-filled event!

Kid 2 2015_Rosemary Mosco