An interview, a dream, and years in the making...
An interview, a dream and years in the making, describes our journey to conserve our land.
Steve, my husband, and I had been dreaming of owning a small farm and woodland ever since we met in a plant and soil science class at UVM.
While teaching in Enosburg, I contacted a realtor who said she knew of a woman on a hillside farm who had mentioned that she might sell her farm to the right people. Thus, the interview. We had formal tea and were interviewed. The sellers were two older sisters with no heirs. The resident sister, Barbara, had lived and worked all her life on the farm until the state bulk tank law forced her parents and her to sell their cows. Although she was then compelled to work away from the farm, her heart was still on the land. We warmly connected during that tea. The sisters wanted someone to keep animals on the farm and love the land as much as they did.
I taught agriculture and Steve is a cattle veterinarian, so we were the people they chose to continue their legacy of stewarding this land. Over the next few years, as adjoining land came up for sale, we added to our original 75 acres. An abandoned hill farm on our back boundary was being considered for a house site. When it was put on the market we were fortunate enough to also buy that parcel. One scare occurred when a local developer was pressuring Barbara to sell a 50 acre parcel across from the house so that he could put in houses in the meadow. Fortunately, she came to us and we scraped together the money to avert that outcome.
A poignant story that gave Barbara deep joy and contentment in her last months of life was when our son built a sap house and started sugaring the woods that she and her dad had sugared for years. Every time we visited her she talked about how happy she was that the woods were being sugared again. Years before, she had had the old trees logged off the land but now the next generation of maples were ready to tap.
Now, over 40 years later, we have honored Barbara and her parents by conserving this land. We have beaver ponds and a brook that runs the length of our property. We abutt other conserved land, making our property part of a large continuous tract that will provide habitat and connectivity for wildlife.
Our son lives just up the road and loves the land as much as we do. We do not know if his young children will stay here to love and protect the land that we love, so we have worked with the Vermont Land Trust to ensure that this land, which we have been stewarding for decades, will remain a working farmstead and forest for the future.
We are deeply grateful to the Vermont Land Trust and Cold Hollow to Canada for all of their assistance and support to make our dream become a reality.
Photos from Sarah Downes of the brook that runs through her conserved forest
NOTE FROM CHC ON THE IMPORTANCE OF SARAH'S PARCEL:
This land is part of a 2,200-acre priority forest block mapped by Vermont Conservation Design that is within the Champlain Hills biophysical region of Vermont. This region is an important steppingstone for connectivity and biodiversity as it bridges the lowlands of the Champlain Valley to the higher elevations of the Greens. By conserving over 250 acres of their land, the overall amount of protected forest within this habitat block has been doubled (now at 21%), contributing to statewide goals of increasing the amount of permanently protected land within this biophysical region, which has much less land protected compared to other regions around the state. This project also advances CHC’s goal of conserving 23,000 acres of strategic forestland by 2030, which is now at 38% complete!
Sarah currently serves on the CHC board of directors, and her and her husband Steve have been a part of the Enosburg woodlots group since the outset.