It was a typical Friday morning for Jill Stephenson. Dusted with flour, she kneaded dough atop a sturdy oak parquet table for a dozen loaves of bread. Her husband, Michael, a robust man who prefers to wear his curly gray hair long and pulled back in a ponytail, had just completed his early morning chores, tending the livestock on the small farm the Stephensons called home.
That home is the Farm at Bree, a hardworking farm complex that includes a turn-of-the-century farmhouse, hen house, a few outbuildings, six goats, 20 chickens and nine rabbits, all located on a parcel of land adjoining the Hickory Grove Conservation Site in Cary.
The Farm at Bree is also a living classroom.
So no sooner had the Stephenson`s finished their morning chores, than a group of about 20 children arrived to spend a day at the farm, meeting the goats, chickens and rabbits, romping in the fields and helping out with chores much the way pioneer youngsters did decades before.
For the past 17 years, the Stephensons have been caretakers of the Farm at Bree and employees of the McHenry County Conservation District (MCCD). They have also been the teachers in this living classroom.
To that end, they have lived in a farmhouse with a kitchen boasting no modern cabinets or appliances, except for a refrigerator and stove. The only furnishings in the main living area are a wooden rocker, bench, small desk and chest of drawers. There is no television set. Numerous books, mostly how-to volumes, line the shelves along the walls.
A sign posted on the wall sums up the couple`s attitude toward living:
”Use it up, wear it out, make it do, live without.”
The Stephensons hope that bit of wisdom has made a difference to the 30,000 or so schoolchildren who have visited them in the last 15 years. For it is the Stephensons who began and have facilitated the Farm at Bree`s Living Land Program, a hands-on learning experience primarily for school-aged children.
”We at the Conservation District, including the board of directors, feel that this (the Living Land Program) is a very important part of our education program,” said Steve Weller, executive director of the MCCD.
And education is what the Farm at Bree is all about. The emphasis is clearly on learning to do, instead of just learning. Visitors are expected to immerse themselves in the day-to-day activities of farm life. And the fun begins once the children discover just how responsible and capable they really are.
”We want the kids to feel that they are better than they thought they were when they first arrived,” said Michael. ”Young kids can be very responsible if we allow them to be responsible for themselves.”
As soon as a group arrives, usually by 10 a.m., Jill ushers the children into the living room where she explains the day and goes over rules.
In the kitchen, meanwhile, Michael tackles the teachers and chaperones.
”We want them (the adults) to be participants, not leaders, for the day,”
said Michael.
That, in fact, is an integral part of the program.
”The Living Land Program teaches young children skills that they can do by themselves,” Weller said. ”We feel that with a hands-on type experience the children will keep talking about what they`ve learned. Most people learn better by doing a particular activity instead of just being lectured.”
”Kids, today, don`t have the feeling that they are really needed,” said Michael. ”A long time ago, a 2-year-old shelled peas, because he was needed to perform that task.”
All sorts of little hands are needed to prepare lunch for the group, a project that will take up a better portion of the morning. Each member of the group will help in the preparation of chicken or beef stew and corn muffins. For many of the kids, it will be the first time they`ve been allowed to help in the kitchen.
”They will definitely be the best corn muffins the kids will ever eat,” said Michael.
And, quite possibly, the most involved. Michael will walk a group out to the hen house to fetch eggs from the bantam chickens. Then the children will take ears of corn, dried the previous season, and scrape the kernels into a grinder. The children will grind the kernels into a fine meal before mixing the eggs and corn meal with fresh goats milk (from the farm`s goats). Once the batter is scooped into muffin pans, the muffins will be baked.
Vegetables will be chopped. Meatballs will be shaped with, unquestionably, the cleanest hands some of the kids will ever have. ”We ask them to wash their hands a lot when they are working in the kitchen. The children need to understand the importance of good hygiene when they are around food,” said Jill. ”It gets to be a game. If they touch their face or hair or their neighbor, it`s back to the sink.”
Leftover lunch scraps, if there are any, return to the barnyard. Some will go to the henhouse for feed. The rest will be mixed in a mulch pile for fertilizing the garden.
”The kids start to see the food chain connection,” Michael said of the meal preparation.
”And they also see that the food we eat comes from very basic ingredients, not from the pretty packages you bring home from the market,”
added Jill.
After lunch, the children will hike the trails adjacent to the farm. They are given a map to follow and asked to be aware of the other creatures that the forest is home to, to look for signs of their presence. The Stephensons seek out the most timid of the group that day and give them the responsibility of map holder.
Besides the cooking and hiking, the children are introduced to activities that once kept pioneer children busy. ”We also encourage the kids to be their own teachers,” said Michael, pointing out the numerous books on nature available to the children at the farm.
Lynn Bobik, a Barrington school teacher, has visited the Farm at Bree for the last 11 years with her 1st-grade classes.
”The children gain so much personally by realizing they are capable of doing things by themselves from beginning to end,” said Bobik. ”They also realize that they are expected to participate and that they have
responsibilities as a group member. Having an up-close-and-personal contact with the farm animals made the children`s time with them very meaningful.”
This spring, the Stephensons welcomed their last group of children to the farm before retiring to their 150-year old log cabin in Iowa.
”We are ready for some quiet,” said Michael.
”It will be a much simpler life,” added Jill. ”We won`t have to live by other people`s schedules.”
Before they left, Jill spent a week with Bill Tulp. He and his wife, Dana Karuza, have become the new caretakers of the Farm at Bree.
Tulp, 38, who has a background in environmental education, is finishing up his master`s in outdoor teacher education at Northern Illinois University, which has included a stint at the school`s Lorado Taft Field Campus on the Rock River near Oregon, Ill. Karuza, 30, will join Tulp at the Farm at Bree later this summer when she finishes up her supervisory position at the Freeport Park District`s Oakdale Nature Preserve.
Although Tulp has been busy working on the farmhouse, he has been thinking about the direction the program will take.
”We`d like to do more with natural communities,” said Tulp, referring to the natural areas surrounding the farm. He`d also like to make the focus
”not just the farm, but how it relates to (the children`s) lives.”
It was that enthusiasm for nature that impressed the MCCD some 17 years ago when they met Michael and Jill Stephenson. Not only did Michael have carpentry skills he`d learned on his own, but the couple had a sincere interest in nature and conservation. The Stephensons were hired to look after the aged farmhouse, outbuildings and surroundings, as well as to act as gatekeepers of the entrance to the grove. The position required them to be self sufficient and responsible and, of course, willing to live in, rehabilitate and maintain the house and land.
The job description and free board suited them fine and allowed the Stephensons a chance to raise livestock and cultivate a garden large enough to feed their family, which included Jill`s two daughters from a previous marriage, Chereka and Sunserae.
A short time after their arrival at the farm, which had been purchased by the MCCD as a conservation site in April 1974, the Stephensons began the successful Living Land Program for the Conservation District, inspired by children`s fascination with animals.
”We would bring to our daughters` (5 and 6 years old at the time) school one of our newborn goat kids for show and tell,” recalled Jill. ”Most of them had never seen a goat up close. And many of them were afraid to come close for fear it could hurt them.”
The children`s curiosity helped them realize that their daughters`
classmates really had little idea of what life on a farm was like. So the Stephensons invited the students to come to the farm where they would introduce them to horses, chickens, adult goats and more. Feedback from their children`s teachers was positive as the Stephensons found out how beneficial the outings to the farm had been for the youngsters.
”We began to wonder how many others would benefit from a hands-on experience that we were willing to provide at our home,” said Jill.
They took the idea for the Living Land Program before the MCCD Board in the mid-`70s. Eventually, the board agreed to a trial.
Everett Thomas, a former trustee for the MCCD when the idea for the Living Land Program was first proposed, said, ”At first, we were all a bit skeptical about the idea. But then, even after the first outside groups arrived, we could see the positive impression the Stephensons` approach was making on the children who lived (closer to Chicago) that never had an opportunity to see a working farm and farm animals up close. That`s important these days as we are seeing more and more farms disappear from this area.”
Today, only school groups, or youth organizations such as Scouts and park district camp programs, may participate in the Living Land Program. The fee is $4 per person.
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For information on the Living Land Program, contact John Shiel at the MCCD offices: 815-678-4774.
