Friends of Adams Farm
Newsletter
Spring 2015
Number 37
Upcoming Events at Adams Farm
As the snow continues to melt, there is a full calendar
of events already on tap at Adams Farm. For more
information, check out the events calendar on the Adams
Farm website (http://www.adams-farm.com/events.htm).
April
5 Grace Community Easter Celebration
12 Cub Scout Pack 44 Meeting
14 Norfolk Hunt Club Drag Hunt
May
3
6
27
30
31
31
Community Garden Opening Day
Mountain Bike Race
Mountain Bike Race
Levine Wedding
Cub Scout Pack 44 Rocket Derby
Community Garden Potluck Dinner
Barn Burner Adds Pro Bike Race
All the snow this winter couldn’t deter intrepid
mountain bikers from taking to the trails at Adams Farm.
But with warmer weather on the way, Blue Hills Cycling
Club (BHCC) is preparing for a two-day Barn Burner
Mountain Bike Race at Adams Farm this year. On
Saturday, July 11, some of the Northeast’s top amateur
mountain bike racers will face the challenge of the Farm’s
beautiful trails. Beginning at 10:30AM, the races will
follow a 6-mile-long loop of trails at the Farm.
New this year, a pro bike race will take place on
Sunday, July 12, also starting at 10:30AM. Kids can get
into the act as well with their own bike race on Sunday at
noon.
Proceeds from both Barn Burner races will benefit
Adams Farm. For more information or to register for the
Barn Burner races, visit https://www.bikereg.com/thebarn-burner.
June
6 Plant Swap
17 Mountain Bike Race
28 Community Garden Potluck Dinner
July
8
11
12
19
29
Mountain Bike Race
3rd Annual Barn Burner Bike Race
Barn Burner Pro Bike Race
Community Garden Potluck Dinner
Mountain Bike Race
August
9 Community Garden Potluck Dinner
19 Mountain Bike Race
September
12 Norfolk Hunt Club Drag Hunt
12 Community Garden Potluck Dinner
19 Service Dog Trail Race Fundraiser
October
17 Community Garden Potluck Dinner
November
8
Community Garden Closing Day
Community Garden Opening Day is May 3
Presidential Seeds Now Available!
rd
The Community Garden will officially open for its
seventh season on Sunday, May 3. All 64 plots in the
Garden are spoken for. If you’d like to add your name to
the waiting list for a plot this season, please contact
Community Garden Coordinator Peggy Burns at
peggy.burns1@verizon.net. Any plots that haven’t been
planted by June 8 will be reassigned to gardeners on the
waiting list. The cost of a plot is $30 for the season.
The Walpole Seed Library, housed in a beautifully
refurbished antique card catalogue, is now fully stocked
and ready for business! Thanks to the hard work of
FOAF board member Susan Packenham, seeds have
arrived from all over the country to help get the Seed
Library started. One notable delivery came from
Monticello, the former estate of President Thomas
Jefferson. Jefferson’s North American heirloom seeds
include many types of flowers, herbs and vegetables.
The Seed Library is located in the Walpole Public
Library and offers a wide variety of non-GMO
(genetically modified organism) seeds for local gardeners
to enjoy. The card catalogue itself was donated by none
other than Fisher School music teacher Jim Holmes.
Walpole resident Emily Muller, a student at Mass College
of Art, painted a bountiful harvest of vegetables on the
piece to accentuate its function.
Gardeners are welcome to take seeds at no cost from the
library. If you take seeds, all we ask is that you donate
non-GMO seeds to the Seed Library at the end of the
gardening season. These seeds will become next year’s
inventory.
Seeds may be dropped off at the 2nd floor reference desk
at the Library or mailed to: The Seed Library, c/o
Walpole Public Library, 143 School Street, Walpole, MA
02081.
Please join us in creating this free seed base that will
help maintain plant diversity and encourage a connection
with nature in our community.
anyone would like to help again this summer, please feel
free to contact me (blueyrn@icloud.com) or any FOAF
board member.
Butterfly Garden Update
by Ed Sugrue, FOAF Associate Board Member
by Dorothy O’Shaughnessy
WWC Conservation Chairman
I personally felt the peace and loved the quiet beauty
that the snow brought this winter, in spite of cold winds.
Yes, the snow has given Adams Farm a real taste of its
beauty, but now
Spring is starting
to fight its way
in. (Today the
snow
has
lowered
itself
down to the level
of the bench
seat!)
A Boundless Moment
He halted in the wind, and — what was that
Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost?
He stood there bringing March against his thought,
And yet too ready to believe the most.
"Oh, that's the Paradise-in-bloom," I said;
And truly it was fair enough for flowers
had we but in us to assume in march
Such white luxuriance of May for ours.
We stood a moment so in a strange world,
Myself as one his own pretense deceives;
And then I said the truth (and we moved on).
A young beech clinging to its last year's leaves.
Budding tree in the Butterfly Garden
As I walked the Butterfly Garden, I was thrilled to note
that many of the trees are flaunting their Spring
Awakening. The first tree to bud is the Aristocratic Pear,
just as you enter the Garden. I think it will blossom very
soon.
Others in bud are the
English
Red
Horse
Chestnut in the main
back bed, the Japanese
Maple in the small back
side bed near the fence,
and
the
dogwoods
(Florida Pink, Florida
Rubra and Florida Alba).
This year we don’t seem
to have had as much of a
problem with deer eating
the bark of the trees, but
a couple are going to
need a little help.
English Red Horse Chestnut
I hear that there is an increase of monarch butterflies
this year!!! YEAH!!!! Let’s hope their journey up here
will be successful.
Once again I’d like to thank all the volunteers who
helped with the watering of the Garden last year. If
When we read this Robert Frost poem in English class
years ago, I can remember competing with the other kids
in my class to come up with the most abstract,
metaphysical, cosmic interpretation of this poem that we
could possibly imagine. We contorted it beyond all
reason, making it into a commentary on God, the afterlife,
various moments from the Bible, probably a few political
issues . . . it went on and on.
But over the next few weeks, if you are going for a walk
in Adams Farm . . . look around you. Young beech trees,
at this time of year, appear just as the poem clearly
describes them – "Pale, but not a ghost." Due to a trait
that they possess called "marcescence," they retain their
old leaves through the winter, and those leaves are, by late
winter, bleached by the elements to a pale ghost of their
former green selves. They are, of course, not ghosts, but
one can sympathize with the speaker in the poem, for
feeling the need to remind himself of this fact. They
really do look ghostly, particularly when seen from a
distance, perhaps, as in the poem, through a grove of
leafless maples.
So now you have something to mull over, the next time
you are out for a walk at Adams Farm! Perhaps you
could take this opportunity to weave your own poem
about something else that you may see while out walking
in the woods. Poetry is probably not enough of a force to
save the few wild places like Adams Farm that remain to
us in Eastern Massachusetts, but hey . . . it couldn't hurt to
try.
The Monarchs are Back!
by Rich Knowles
The overwintering monarchs made their way back to
Texas two weeks ago, specifically 65 miles ESE of San
Antonio. Wildflower and milkweed conditions are good
there for a change, following much needed rains recently.
This year's overwintering population of monarchs was
again abysmal, the second lowest number of monarchs in
recorded history. Last year's number was the lowest.
If our endless winter ever finishes, we can expect the
offspring of the overwintering generation to start passing
through this region around the end of May, just after the
emergence of milkweed.
Going Native
(excerpted from the Spring 2014 issue of Special Places,
the Trustees of Reservations newsletter)
Replacing invasive species with native plants in your
backyard doesn’t mean you have to give up ornamental
value or fragrance. They’re not any harder to grow either.
Virginia sweetspire, fothergilla, spicebush, highbush
blueberry or native sumac can be substituted for burning
bush, an invasive shrub that turns scarlet in the fall.
Native blueberry shrubs or red chokecherry can stand in
for invasive Japanese barberry.
Purple loosestrife, the feathery purple perennial that has
overrun our local wetlands, can be swapped out for
cardinal flower, bee balm, liatris, turtlehead and other
native asters. Remove Japanese honeysuckle to make
way for trumpet vine with its flaming orange or yellow
tubular flowers that attract hummingbirds.
Native plants can be found at local nurseries or online at
Project Native (projectnative.org), the New England Wild
Flower Society (newenglandwild.org) and the Brooklyn
Botanical Garden (bbg.org/gardening/category/native
_flora).
Recipe for Spring
Here’s the recipe for some delicious lemon squares that
screams springtime!
Margaret’s Lemon Squares
Crust
1 stick butter at room temperature
1 cup flour
¼ cup confectioners sugar
Seeds and gardening information on display
at the 2nd Annual Seed Swap
2nd Annual Seed Swap Draws a Crowd
by Alicia LeClair
Like the snowdrops appearing from behind the
snowbanks, local gardeners showed up at the Walpole
Public Library for the 2nd Annual Seed Swap on March
18. It was an evening filled with conversations about
veggies and flowers that would soon be ready for
planting. Almost three times more people attended the
swap this year than last year.
FOAF board member Susan Packenham spoke to the
group about the new Seed Library that the Friends of
Adams Farm have set up at the Walpole Library. The
Seed Library already has an amazing collection of organic
and heirloom seeds available, including seeds from the
Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants. The seeds
are free to anyone who wishes to use them, with the hope
that as more gardeners become involved, they will
contribute saved seeds from their own gardens.
Peggy Burns, the new Coordinator of the Community
Garden, welcomed a large group of home gardeners,
professional gardeners, families, and members of the
Adams Farm Community Garden and the Norwood
Community Garden to the swap. All who attended
enjoyed sharing gardening tips and information on the
growing season that is about to begin.
Filling
1 cup sugar
2 TBSP flour
¼ tsp baking powder
2 eggs
2 TBSP lemon juice
1 tsp lemon rind
Confectioners sugar for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour an 8”x8”
pan. Combine all crust ingredients in mixer. Press crust
evenly into bottom of pan with your fingertips. Bake at
350 degrees for 15 minutes. With mixer, combine all
filling ingredients. Pour over crust and bake 20 minutes.
Allow to cool fully, then sprinkle with confectioners
sugar.
Yield: 12 to 16 squares.
Get the Answer Here!
(excerpted from the October-December 2014 issue of
Connections, the Mass Audubon newsletter)
If you’re looking for answers to wildlife questions that
have you stumped, check out the “Nature & Wildlife”
section of Mass Audubon’s website. Much of the
information available there was compiled by preschoolteacher-turned-wildlife-expert Linda Cocca, who’s been
answering people’s wildlife questions since 1988.
Although recently retired, she created Mass Audubon’s
Living with Wildlife manual in the 1990s which ran to
more than 300 pages when it was first published in the
fall of 2000. Now all that information and more is
available online at www.massaudubon.org/learn/naturewildlife.
Time to Renew Your Membership
Currently, over 320 families are members of the Friends
of Adams Farm. If you haven’t already renewed your
membership for 2015, please take a moment to do so now.
FOAF membership dues are as follows:
Individual
Family
Sponsor
Patron
$10.00
$15.00
$25.00
$50.00
Your membership fee goes toward maintenance costs
such as sanitary facilities, electricity, and haying the
fields, and also allows you to receive our quarterly
newsletters and other email updates about happenings at
Adams Farm.
Please take the time to talk to your friends, neighbors
and relatives about Adams Farm and the many activities
that take place there, and encourage them to join the ranks
of our members.
Membership forms are available in the map box at the
Farm, in the Selectmen’s office at Town Hall, and on the
Adams Farm website (www.adams-farm.com), and
should be sent, along with a check made out to The
Friends of Adams Farm, Inc., P.O. 725, Walpole, MA
02081.
Dedicated to the Preservation of Adams Farm
Adams Farm
Located at 999 North Street, North Walpole, MA
Friends of Adams Farm, Inc.
P.O. Box 725, Walpole, MA 02081
www.adams-farm.com