A 2010 article featuring Farmers’ Markets compared Full Moon Farm to “an Andrew Wyeth painting with its fallow field sloping to the barn. The ambience within is just as memorable – plank floors, beaded boards, wainscoting, flecks of white wash, the silhouettes of farm tools, the scent of hay, bouquets of herbs and flowers in mason jars, vegetables displayed on tables draped with cotton cloths, bunches of colorful eggplants, carrots, beets, strawberry baskets of onions and new potatoes, bushels of corn, pecks of peppers, and bright red tomatoes nested on beds of fresh straw in wooden crates. Somehow all of the colors and textures and scents blend together and bring us to an era in which we readily yearn to spend more time.”
While none of this has changed in the last ten years, the barn at 130 Station Road has served more purposes than most in its 120 year history. Though the house was constructed earlier in the 19th century than its circa 1880 Victorian renovations suggest, the barn was built in 1901 when the Copelands owned the property and operated a saw mill there. Fuller Brook, originally called “Roaring Brook” runs through the property and was the water source which powered one of the town’s first saw mills built further along Utley Road in 1719.
In the early 1920’s, owners Stanton and Cora Burdick ran “Hillbur Farm”, a dairy operation, selling the milk their cows produced at the Rawson Depot on Station Road. Their son Malcolm shared remembrances of the farm with current owners Rob and Ann Withey Miller. These ranged from the unforgettable — Malcolm and his brother Stanton would come home from school and spend three hours watering the cows, pouring from the well in the milk shed to a trough at a pace never fast enough to keep up with their consumption, to the nostalgic — he liked it when people traveled on horseback by their farm on the way to and from the train station, because people on horseback always stopped to talk. Cars just drove by.
The family also raised broiler chickens in the buildings on the Utley Road portion of the property. Malcolm, and Paulie Tumel, maintained the government introduced knotweed to the region to protect chickens from avian predators. Where there’s knotweed, they claimed, there were chickens. Perhaps there’s truth to that; anyone paying attention to the invasiveness of knotweed will know that there’s so much of it on Utley Road that the Conservation Commission can’t even consider its removal in their “Nip the Knotweed” project. And while there’s little doubt as to why the claim can’t be verified on State sites, those of us who knew these two wouldn’t dream of doubting them.
Cora Burdick contributed many memories to Hampton Remembers, and though she didn’t write of her family’s farm, there was little else regarding town life that escaped her commentary.
On Fashion: When I came to Hampton in 1923 they kind of wore things the way they should be. The skirts were twelve inches above the floor and everybody had ‘em twelve inches. And then they went to fourteen – and I tell ya’ that was … When I was first married you didn’t wear short sleeves, you could roll them up just a little below the elbow and I remember an old lady asking me “what did you do, just get outa the washtub?”
On the Church: Mr. Muttart always had a time with names – he’d always say ‘em wrong I don’t know how many times – and Stanton Burdick and Charlotte Burdick and Malcolm Burdick and Sherman Chapel all joined the church at the same time. So he baptized them all as Burdick – you got the three Burdicks there – and Sherman has called me “Mother” ever since!
On the Grange: We had music, sketches and everything and why you know we’ve put on some programs that really, I tell ya’, they were really worth lookin’ at! … I remember one time as I read a poem Dot Holt and somebody else, I think it was Sim Fuller, came in as a horse. It was so ridiculous it brought the house down. It did go over – well, of course all those things do.
Malcolm and his family would continue to live on the farm, though the barn served new roles. An electronics instructor at Windham Tech, Malcolm used the space as a repair shop for the radios and televisions he fixed. The hayloft was converted into a sort of museum for his extensive collection of phonographs and old radios. A veteran of World War II, Malcolm served in the Signal Corp and was involved in the D-Day invasion of Normandy as a radio man; in that capacity, he recalled, he knew “something big was going on”, but he didn’t know what. Like many of his generation, he measured everything in relation to that era; all the events of his life fell before, or after, World War II.
For the last thirty years, Rob and Ann have revitalized the family farm. The chickens have returned to Utley Road where pigs are also raised and there’s “plenty of fresh vegetation… sun, shade and wallows”. The chickens also reside at the two farms on Old Kings Highway, one where orchards are cultivated and another where cattle are raised. On Saturdays, the barn serves as a Farmer’s Market, reaping the harvest of all the crops grown, ushering in autumn with pumpkins and winter squash, baskets of onions and potatoes, ropes of garlic, bunches of carrots, turnips, rutabagas and beets, and bushels of apples. Spring begins in the barn with asparagus, then lettuces, kale, spinach, chard, broccoli and Brussels sprouts. Summer follows with cucumbers and corn and beans, summer squashes, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, and fruit – blueberries, raspberries and watermelons. Bouquets of fresh flowers and fresh herbs scent the air. The farm is entirely organic, the fruits and vegetables are free of chemicals, the chickens supplying the eggs for sale are free-range, the pigs producing the pork products are raised on the left-overs of field and of table, and the cattle for the beef are grass-fed through the growing season and given the hay the family grows on the farm in winter.
Ann and Rob started selling the crops they grew on the farm in 1989 at local farmers’ markets until neighbors encouraged them to open a stand in Hampton. The barn opened its doors to customers in 2009. Though Full Moon Farm is open on Saturdays, from ten in the morning to three in the afternoon, a new feature this year is the conversion of the milk shed into a convenient, self-service “Hit or Miss” stand so residents can access fresh food daily.
“Our farm stand was incubated when Bob Garner saw us unloading boxes of produce at the Willimantic food co-op,” Rob relayed. “He approached us and asked why we were taking all that fresh Hampton produce out of town. He insisted it stay in Hampton. Then Tom Gaines started pressuring us to open a roadside stand. Both families have continued to support it.”
Full Moon Farm is a family endeavor. Committed to organic food, sustainable agriculture, and “keeping open space, open,” Ann and Rob are responsible for the produce, the cattle and the pigs. Rob has a long history of farming; like many of us, his family cultivated lots of vegetables. Though Ann’s childhood didn’t include raising crops, her early philosophy of “building a socially conscious and successful business” is universally well known, for “Smart Food”, the start of her enterprises, the expansion of products in “Annie’s Homegrown”, and, of course, “Bernie”, who for years has provided “the rabbit of approval” seal.
Their daughter Molly manages the produce and runs the farm stand on Saturdays. Graduating in 2020 from the University of Vermont where she studied Community Development and Food Systems, Molly is also in charge of the chickens and their eggs and raises sheep. “As Molly transitions into running the operation,” her father notes, “we’re seeing people from her generation showing an interest in food.” Their daughter Phoebe, a student at Eastern Connecticut State University studying Biochemistry, provides homemade baked goods – delicious brownies and cookies and fresh scones and muffins using berries grown on the farm.
The newest member of the family farm is Trent Hagerty, who contributes Sourdough Porridge Bread from the “Boulangerie a Full Moon Farm”, fabulous loaves of hard red wheat flour, organic spelt, oats and rye, sprouted quinoa and salt, delivered warm. Trent has a history with artisan breads. He and his mother sold loaves of the famous French Baker, Gerard Rubaud, at a Vermont Farmer’s Market when Trent was a child. He committed that taste to memory. Later, Trent apprenticed with another revered Vermont baker, Trent Cooper, who had apprenticed under Rubaud. Trent now works at Atticus Bakery in New Haven, which also uses “freshly milled whole grains regionally sourced”. If you haven’t treated yourself yet to Trent’s loaves, you’re missing something really special.
Full Moon Farm also promotes other products from town, such as Bright Acres’ maple syrup, A & Z Honey, Shelly Blair’s jewelry and crafts, and Gary Freed’s handmade soaps. “We don’t see this as at all competitive, but rather co-operative. There are other agricultural products all over town,” says Rob. “We all heard of empty shelves at supermarkets when Covid began, and we’re lucky to have local food systems in place as backup.” Sam Fisher considers Rob, who offered assistance when his family started Organic Roots Farm, “a mentor, he still checks on us regularly.”
Neighborliness is a palpable part of the farm. “Always one of the nicest things about this stand has been the gathering of townspeople and everyone seems to leave their politics in the parking lot and focus on the food and of course the weather,” Rob says. “Seeing folks with opposing political views discussing recipes or tomato varieties is comforting.”
Fortunately for townsfolk, that hasn’t changed either.
Dayna McDermott Arriola
“Hampton Remembers”, by Alison Davis, is available on Amazon and at Fletcher Memorial Library.