Corn, Color, Community At Farm Stands

Fresh corn, tart apples, "Cherokee purple" heirloom tomatoes - and meeting wonderful people - the bounty of summer is waiting at farm stands around the region.

We visit three - Durham, Wetherfield, a festival booth from a South Glastonbury farm - http://www.moodogpress.com/2009/08/pickin-fresh-corn-more-at-farm-stands/.

Grow It, CT NOFA, Red Hook, Nuestras Raices

How can a community garden be connected to economic development, environmental sustainability, healthier eating in schools and at home, and a sense of community?

It's one big circle. Cultivate community and ideas - with attention and care (as with children, plants, or animals), watch them grow.

The Connecticut chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association, CT NOFA hosts a conference "Cultivating an Organic Connecticut: Closing Connecticut's Food Gap with Urban Agriculture, Small Farms and Gardens."

Featured speakers are Ian Marve, co-founder and director, Added Value and its Red Hook Community Farm (Brooklyn, New York), and Dan Ross, executive director, Nuestras Raices (Spanish, "our roots"), an urban agriculture/community garden centered in Holyoke, Mass. (For a Boston Globe story about how Nuestras Raices is part of global change, see this link.)

The conference with workshops and an exhibit area is Saturday, Feb. 21 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Windsor High School.

More importantly, anyone considering a community garden, niche business, organic lawn care, or wanting to learn where to get local food can find a network of people at CT NOFA.

Bill Duesing is executive director of CT NOFA, president of the NOFA Interstate Council, and author of Living on the Earth: Eclectic Essays for a Sustainable and Joyful Future.

For details about membership, other workshops and regional conferences, visit www.ctnofa.org or call (203) 888-5146.

Higganum Feed, Community Hub

Winds of change are blowing in Higganum.

The Country Market has left the village center. The former Higganum Drug Store building is vacant as well.

But Higganum Feed Store stands as a beacon and a landmark.

Inside, it's warm and the people are helpful (even fellow customers). The business not only is an Ace Hardware store, but also serves as a hub for the community. If you want to know what is going on in town, or need local hay, salt for your walkways, or a good answer to an odd question, this is the place.

According to the town historical society, Buckley Johnson constructed the feed store and it remained in the family until 1924. The Carlson family are long-time owners, and now their children run the business: Sheryl Nosal, Warren Carlson Jr., and sister, Lauri Milardo.

If Frank Ziobron, assistant manager, is behind the counter, he can find what you need inside the store or explain why local eggs are not available as much anymore.

Ziobron moved to town from East Haddam in 1983. He points out that Higganum Feed Store was built in 1880 and has been "supplying agricultural goods for more than the 100 years." The location has also served for years as a state check station for game.

"That will change next year," he said. "We'll miss that. I enjoying seeing and talking with the hunters, and the stories about the 'one that got away'."

Anglers stop here for bait in spring, from worms and shiners to eelworms, locally produced.

Good things find their way to Higganum Feed. From jars of golden honey produced Windy Hill Farm (Middlefield) to tins of RubIt! a fragrant skin care balm invented by entrepreneur Bobbie Davis of BKN Naturals, Branford. Each colorful tin contains a blend of olive oil and beeswax and other ingredients. After raves about how the formula worked for her own family and friends, Davis marketed and launched RubIt! as a business. Products include a version for dry skin, one for mechanics, and another to repel biting bugs.


And the red feed store has been re-created as a collectible by the Cat's Meow Company, alongside landmarks such as Gillette's Castle and the Griswold Inn. See that product line at the Merchant House, located farther south on Route 154. Or visit this link to see other merchants in Connecticut.

Change is the one constant to life in a river town. (Higganum is said to be the Indian word for Great Bend in River. The town is part of Haddam, proper, and fronts a beautiful stretch of the Connecticut River.)

The Country Market is in the process of moving to Tylerville (the village located south on Route 154, before the swing bridge over the Connecticut River that leads to East Haddam.)



At present, the building that was home to the market is being cleaned and renovated. News of its availability will be posted here as that develops. To learn more about the history of the building (it was a grocery, post office and bank at one time, and movies were shown upstairs) visit The Haddam Historical Society site.