Printer Friendly Version - Field House Farm: Farming Education in the Modern Age

Stephanie Lesnik of Field House Farm in Madison is also a huge proponent of educating the public about self-sustainability and offers many programs and field-to-table dinners for kids and adults throughout the year.

Those living in today's era of convenience, video games, and fast food sometimes find themselves dreaming of a simpler, more wholesome time. Stephanie Lesnik and her husband, Greg, wanted their family to reap the benefits of self-sustainability and living off the land. The couple and its four children will mark five years living at Field House Farm in Madison at the end of March.

"We just wanted to do stuff on our own," she says simply. "We wanted to grow things. We'd always been growing things and we had backyard chickens. We've been in Madison for 12 years. We had all these little things going on and we enjoyed all the little things that we were sustaining ourselves with, but we wanted to have a gentleman's farm-a gentlewoman's farm," she corrects herself with a laugh.

While seeking a place to chase their dreams, they came across the Field House and its 10 acres.

"With four young kids, it's really hard to look at houses and think you're not going to destroy them," Lesnik says, "so this house was actually perfect because it's almost 300 years old-we can't break it! And it was so lovingly restored."

The Lesniks (and their chickens) moved in. On their third day in the house, a friend showed up with two orphaned baby lambs. That summer, another friend brought over two baby goats. Slowly, the farm came together. Their livestock now includes cows, a donkey, turkeys, chickens, Shetland sheep, Hampshire sheep, Alpine goats, and pigs.

"Part of the reason we have such a diversity in our animals is not only because they're fun for us, but they're also fun for the kids' programs that we do," Lesnik says.

"It's really just an exposure program," Lesnik says. "It allows the kids to come and meet the animals and not only participate in their care, but let them understand what the animals' daily life is like, what's required.

"Specifically, I think a good lesson is, when you eat chicken, what goes into that whole picture? They come as babies-well, everyone loves to see baby chicks. It's nice for the children to see how the chicks are raised, how they live on a hill and they're healthy, they're loved, and they're fed a certain way to maintain their health, and they're respected even in their sacrifice."

The other program at Field House Farm is an academic-year program called "When the Last Tomato Falls" and runs from October to April.

Lesnik explains, "The whole concept for that program came our second year here, when I really realized that people stop coming to farms after pumpkins are gone. There are so many farms that have so much going on year-round, and it's so hard for them to advertise it. You can't make people go; you can't make people be outside in February.

"So I decided to offer the program to answer that question of what happens when the last tomato falls. What happens on the farms? There's a lot going on, clearly; they're not dormant. The program was designed on that concept to show kids, are we putting the garden to bed, are we buying seeds and starting things in the greenhouse? Have baby chicks arrived in the middle of January and we have to keep them warm under heat lights? Are we having baby goats and baby sheep born?

"It's easier and prettier when it's not muddy, snowy, and cold," she says with a laugh, though she adds, "The kids really embrace it. It's a two-hour session one Saturday a month. We extract honey, we tap maple trees, we make bird feeders."

"The whole meal is designed around what is seasonally available," Lesnik says. "We had a dinner last week that consisted of stored root vegetables,...pork, beef, and chicken; turkey from our farm; and if we have anything in the greenhouse or the field-duck eggs, chicken eggs. So the whole point is a teaching moment for adults, for all the people who are traveling so far to go to Whole Foods. It's not one-stop shopping to go to a farm, but hopefully by exposing people they can figure out what's available and how to access it.

"Our mission is to educate people on how to use farms," Lesnik says. "We have a [chicken] cooking class where you process the whole bird yourself. People come and choose a bird in the field. We kill it, we clean it, we do everything together. We go inside and a chef teaches you how to take it fully apart. Wings, breast meat-we break it down into an entirely boneless piece of meat. You learn how to utilize all the parts, so you don't have to go to a convenience store and just buy skinless, boneless breasts. What happened to the rest of the bird? That knowledge makes it less intimidating.

"If you empower people with knowledge, they can figure it out. Of course we all want 'easy'-I want easy, too-but for us this is very rewarding, and people in town seem to want it and they're excited about it and they're excited to have their kids learn it."