The fireplace is crackling, the snow is falling gently outside, and you’re curled up on the couch with family, a cocoa, and a great book. This is what New England does best! Share the warmth of the winter season with these nature-themed children’s stories, available at the Audubon Shop. Pick one up on your next visit to Drumlin and encourage reading in your home.

1. Winter Dance written by Marion Dane Bauer, Illustrated by Richard Jones

Winter is coming. A young fox watches the other animals in the forest get ready and wonders what he should do during his first winter as an adult. Nothing his neighbors do seems right for him but he discovers the wonderful answer along this animal filled journey. Beautiful illustrations and lyrical text will make children want to read this story again and again. Grade Level: Preschool – 3rd. 

2. Bear Has a Story to Tell written by Phillip C Stead, Illustrated by Erin E. Stead

“It was almost winter and Bear was getting sleepy. But first, Bear had a story to tell…” A kind and adorable bear wants to tell all his friends a story. However, Bear discovers that Mouse, Duck, Frog and Mole are getting ready for winter, so he decides to help them instead. Can he make it through his story without succumbing to sleep himself? Grade Level: 1-2

3. Sugar on Snow by Nan Parson Rossiter

It’s early spring and sap’s rising on this family farm in rural New England. Discover how sap is harvested and turned into maple syrup with the help of everybody in the family.
Lovingly written and illustrated by Rossiter, a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, the book captures the soft light of spring, the crisp air, and the excitement and hard work of syruping time. Grade Level: K-6

4. Nature All Year Long by Clare Walker Leslie

This books is perfect for parents and their budding naturalists to share as they observe and learn together throughout the new year. In “Nature All Year Long”, artist, teacher, and naturalist Clare Walker Leslie guides you through each month of the natural year. Walker includes how to identify animal tracks, set up a bird feeder, plant bulbs, keep a nature journal, learn the constellations, how to make maple syrup, and much more! Grade Level: 1-4.

5. Owl Moon written by Jane Yolen, Illustrated by John Schoenherr‎ 

Join a little girl and her father to look for owls late one wintery night. Jane Yolen poetically tells  of the companionship between father and daughter and the owl moon that brings them together. Pick up a copy from the Audubon Shop at your next visit to Drumlin. Grade Level: Preschool-2

The Audubon Shop, located at Drumlin Farm, is open Tuesday–Sunday (and Monday Holidays)
10:00 am–5:00 pm. Shop their online store here.

Construction of the Environmental Learning Center continues on, rain or shine or snow or cold snap! December saw us through one of the most exciting phases of the project where the building’s structure sprung up from the ground with visible progress happening every day. Here’s a peek at what happened over the past few weeks.

The first thing to sprout from our new foundation was the walls. In just one day, our crew from Chapman Construction/Design framed out the walls and got them up to vertical, meaning we could finally see exactly what the silhouette of our new building looks like. We all love the way the building peeks over the horizon as you come down from the Nature Center, ensuring that our educational work will be apparent to Drumlin Farm visitors as soon as they start walking down the hill to the farm.

As the building went up, work on the surrounding landscape continued. After rerouting the path around a particularly tough bit of ledge, the hoe ram returned to hammer out a bit more rock along the ADA pathway. The newly exposed ledge will be a great feature for kids to explore as they walk from the parking lot to the new building.

Our staff loved seeing some of the more beautiful features of the new building take shape, thanks to the great work of our design team at Maclay Architects. The laminated beams provide strength, as well as style, as they hold up the awning over the main building entrance way. We think the exposed hardware at the joints adds a great farmy touch, too.

The same beams are used throughout the main building as structural support. The pins for each joint were hammered in place through the knife plates that connect the beams. It’s satisfying to imagine that this structure will still be standing to shelter future generations of Drumlin Farm educators for decades to come.

The crew worked long days and weekends through December to get the building closed in before the worst of the snow and cold. Our site supervisor Bob has been here every single day of the job, keeping the project on track down to the last detail. We will admire his handiwork on the skylights every time we look up through them – thanks, Bob!

The education staff ended their December staff meeting with a sneak preview inside the building. There’s a huge difference between seeing your office on a paper blueprint versus getting to walk inside it for real! With the walls in place and the windows framed out, we could start to envision the layout of the different rooms and imagine the creativity and learning that will take place inside. We can’t wait to share it with you in just a few more months.

Look for more updates coming soon. If you would like to learn more about the project, or get involved yourself, we invite you to learn more here.

Renata Pomponi

Sanctuary Director

AER Volunteer Help

On Thursday of last week, a large volunteer group from Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) of Lexington returned to the farm to lend a hand again, after helping us with the fall harvest last year. They are great fun to work with because they model weather for a living and really enjoy seeing and discussing the relationship between the conditions of a season and the impact on crops. They worked diligently and longer than we expected, harvesting 3,100 pounds of potatoes and 200 pounds of carrots. They then helped us break up over 100 pounds of garlic heads for seeding. Thanks so much to all of our AER volunteers!

Garlic Planting

Thankfully, it seems like rain is finally coming. The late summer and fall has been exceptionally dry, and the soil has turned powdery, reminding us of last year’s drought. However, these warm and dry conditions have been perfect for planting next year’s garlic crop and for harvesting potatoes. Over the weekend, we finished planting next year’s garlic crop with help from community volunteers Mimansa, Phuong, and Susie. We set aside 400 pounds of our largest garlic heads from July’s harvest and have been planting a few beds at a time over the past week. Our hands are usually stinging from the cold as we try to finish this job before the ground freezes, but it’s been a treat to plant garlic in 70 degree weather this week. In November, we’ll cover the garlic beds with straw to protect the seed.

It’s a good thing our garlic is doing well, as it’ll be an important deterrent for potential vampires at our Tales of the Night event this week!

Farm Stand

Even though we are filling the root cellar with potatoes and carrots, we still have beautiful field crops for the stand, market and CSA. Today at the farmstand you can find heads of lettuce, spinach, bok choy, tatsoi, radish and bunched beets and carrots.  We’re fortunate this year that the beets and carrots still have nice tops at this point in the season—the cold has usually damaged them by now. The last plum tomatoes of 2017 are also at the stand today. They’ve been ripening since we saved them from the freeze and are sweet enough to be sliced and eaten raw or cooked into sauce—yum! You also still have some time to sign up for our Fall CSA and Winter CSA to keep getting delicious, fresh crops throughout the colder seasons.

Your Farmers

Photo by Sean McMahon

After 11 years as an animal ambassador at Drumlin Farm, our silver-phase red fox is retiring. He will live comfortably in our Wildlife Care Center, where our staff will take care of him for his remaining days.

We’d like to take the time to tell you a little bit more about his story.

2004: When it All Began

Our fox has been with us since January 2006, and he has proudly reached his retirement age of 13 years old. He was originally brought into wildlife rehabilitation in 2004. He was underweight, emaciated, and suffered from seizures. The owner, who had bought the fox to keep him illegally as a pet, left wrong information and disappeared.

After almost two years of constant care by a certified wildlife rehabilitator, the fox was back to health and needed a permanent home having never learned how to survive in the wild. Drumlin Farm was happy to introduce the fox to the Drumlin Underground exhibit where the fox lived, at times, with another red fox.

Signs of Age

Wildlife Care staff noticed the first signs of age-related decline two years ago and has been monitoring the fox ever since. We had hoped that having a new home at the New England Wildlife Explorations exhibit would have eased some of his age-related ailments, but time seems to have taken a toll on the fox.

So now, after 11 wonderful years as one of our animal ambassadors, the fox will move to a new quiet retirement enclosure in a section of the farm closed to the public. The fox joins a crew of retired animals that include our oldest animal, the 42-year-old (at least!) turkey vulture that joined the farm in 1977 when he was already at least two years old.

Drumlin Farm’s Wildlife

Healthcare benefits for the captive wildlife at Drumlin Farm are very good. It’s free, enrichment is given regularly, and delicious meals are provided to all residents. Retirement is also part of the benefits package. Retirement age varies depending on the species, but a comfortable and quiet retirement home is planned for all.

Drumlin Farm is home to more than 70 wildlife animals, representing 37 species native to New England. These animals are non-releasable due to physical or behavioral challenges that prevent them from being competitive in the wild. Some of the animals are unable to capture their food, or escape a predator, and some never learned the social cues needed to interact with members of the same species. Young, healthy animals help our teachers in fulfilling Mass Audubon’s mission of protecting the nature of Massachusetts. Older animals, starting to show signs of physical decline, move into the Wildlife Care Center for retirement.

We don’t purchase our animals, but rather provide a good home to wildlife in need that cannot survive in the wild. We hope to fill the New England Wildlife Explorations exhibit soon with another fox.  We have been in the process of finding a companion for our silver-phase fox, and as I write, we have a solid lead on two red foxes that might join the Drumlin Farm family soon. We’ll announce their arrival on Facebook!

Until then, we here at Wildlife Care want to thank our fox, and our visitors, for a great 11 years.

Flavio Sutti
Wildlife Care Program Coordinator

By Crops Manager Matt Celona

Plantings for the Week

The continued gray and cool weather means we’re twiddling our thumbs waiting for the first peas, beets, carrots and strawberries to come in. In the meantime, we’ll continue planting: watermelons, sweet potatoes, and dahlias are all scheduled to go in the ground this week.

Last week, volunteer groups planted dahlia seedlings, the second round of sweet corn, and our only popcorn for the year—5,300 plants! Thank you to all of our volunteer groups who helped by donating both time and money to our planting efforts.

Those Pesky Potato Beetles

We’re hoping to delay our first spraying of the year by relying on some old-fashioned pest control (squishing them). But when the first round of eggs hatches, and the larvae start to munch on the plants, we’ll begin spraying our bacteria-based, OMRI-approved pesticides (Organic Materials Review Institute).

SNAP Dollar Approval

Mass Audubon has received approval to accept SNAP dollars (formerly Food Stamps) for Drumlin Farm’s CSAs and for our market loyalty program at Union Square Farmer’s Market. Improving access to nature and—in the case of Drumlin Farm—to locally-produced food, is an important component of Mass Audubon’s vision. We hope that more people will be able to enjoy our food as a result of the expansion of this program.

See you in the field,

Your Farmers

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.

[Pause for gasp]

Here’s what to do:

1. Drive to 208 South Great Road in Lincoln, MA.

2. Walk to the admissions window.

3. Ask to see the selection of cow milk soap ($3–4.50 depending on the weight). Pick 2 or 3 of your favorites.

4. Grab a wool skein while you’re at it ($10).

5. Put it all in a Drumlin Farm tote bag ($5).

You’re welcome.