Jessica Thompson gently cradled the black and white baby goat in her arms as it slurped down a bottle of milk.
Thompson is one of the farmers at the Farmsteads of New England in Hillsborough, a residential community for adults who have autism and developmental disabilities. She sat in the hay in the spring sun and her colorful personality showed, with her pants covered prints of Santa Claus, a scarf on her head with emojis and unicorns and red-rimmed sunglasses.
Feeding baby goats is one of the more relaxing jobs at this working farm where employees and residents are ready for the pandemic to be over and to focus on the business at hand, raising animals and crops.
Farmstead residents faced a harsh winter with no visitors allowed due to COVID-19, but things are looking up as more residents get vaccinated and restrictions ease so they can see their family and friends in person once again.
Founder and Executive Director Deborah DeScenza started the nonprofit 20 years ago to create a place that could offer services to her son, who has significant special needs, while also proving meaningful like experiences through activities like farming.
In 2003, Farmsteads purchased the 37-acre Rosewald Farm in Hillsborough and began its mission of providing services and farm work for disabled residents. In 2009, Farmsteads started providing day services at a second leased site at the 21 acre Redberry Farm in Epping.
The farmstead grows its own food and raises its own livestock, too. Currently in the barnyard, they have a litter of piglets as well as the baby goats. They also have about 300 chickens, a couple of barn cats, a flock of ducks, a herd of goats and about six cows.
“So our barnyard is just hopping right now,” Farm Manager Amelia Gardner explained.
DeScenza said that there are lots of activities on and off the farm. Some residents have jobs like taking care of the animals, some work in the garden, some do housekeeping, some do minor clerical work and others have jobs in the community. For example, a resident might spend the morning caring for the animals at the farm and then go out and work in a restaurant in the afternoon.
Operations Manager Jon Noble said they have about 20 people living and working at the Hillsborough location. In the Epping location, they have about 12 people that come for day services. They are in the process of building a greenhouse in Epping that should be finished in the next couple of months.
The Hillsborough location has six residential buildings of four apartments each built around a cul-de-sac, which will be replicated in the next couple of years in Epping. In some buildings, where people need more support, a staff member stays overnight. Others have only day staff. Each person also has their own apartment with a kitchenette, living room, bedroom and bathroom.
Director of Development Doreen Baker said the organization is not well-known to most people. When she started there in January, she made it a part of her mission to help expand Farmsteads to the Epping location to offer more services to more people.
Noble said they’ve struggled to hire new staff during the pandemic, which has meant some extra shifts to fill in the gaps. Even volunteers haven’t been allowed because of the possible spread of the virus.
“It’s very difficult to find individuals that are willing to work to do the kind of work that we’re doing,” Noble said. It’s a unique job too – part healthcare worker, part farm manager.
Noble said getting outside on the farm in Hillsborough as the weather gets warmer has eased a little bit of the cabin fever from the winter. Noble said they’re hoping to be able to access community resources again soon, like the nearby YMCA.
During total lockdown they had a number of birthday parades where seven or eight cars would show up with balloons and banners and everyone would be honking their horn.
“We need to be able to spread our social wings a little bit,” Noble explained. “Winter is hard on a regular year, this was a very particularly difficult winter when you’re only really socializing with three or four people for the entire winter because those are the people that live in your household.”
Even during the most restrictive times, families have been reaching out over the phone, mailing gift cards and buying pizzas as a welcome treat.
As spring and summer approach, the focus turns to choosing what to grow this year to make sure all residents can participate in the farming and gardening.
Throughout the summer, their farm stands remained busy as people were trying to shop local rather than buying everything at grocery stores, said Gardner, the farm manager.
Farmsteads has two mobile farm stands that travel to farmers markets and to low income, elderly communities that can’t get out as easily. They also donate food to the Henniker food pantry, the Warner food pantry and the Salvation Army in Concord. Farmsteads collaborates with a couple of other farms to pick up their leftover produce, which can be used to feed the animals, to cut down on food waste.
Each year they have different little businesses that cater to the interests of their resident farmers. One is a tea business that centers around the plants grown in a perennial herb garden.
One key part of the farming and gardening is making sure everyone can be involved.
Gardner said she likes to put things on a trellis, which enables more people to be involved in the growing and picking process.
“It makes it kind of fun because you take your sustainable gardening practices, and then you add a little twist it’s a little flair, like, how can we make this more accessible, without losing production,” Gardner said.
Farmsteads doesn’t use any chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides so all the food they grow is organic, although they don’t have labels on the food that specify that.
They have also been doing some indoor activities like pottery and art classes. Gardner has also been running a cooking class this year, which has been a hit among residents. Overall, it has been relatively easy to social distance on the farm, the only notice able difference is that they can’t have large group gatherings currently.
With spring, residents and staff are eager to look ahead, even if means looking back at the last year first.
“You can look at COVID in two ways, as restrictions or opportunities, and we’re trying to keep more of an optimistic look at it,” Gardner said. “Like hey, we have a free full size kitchen available in the mornings, because we’re not making community lunch. Let’s have a cooking class and hone in on our cutting skills and our education around food and prep and have a have a good experience together.”
Baker said Farmsteads of New England is so important because there are very few services, particularly residential ones, for a child once they turn 21.
“I know that every parent, their biggest fear is, who will take care of my child if something happens to me,” she said. “So I really was excited about the fact that there is an organization that is trying to provide day and residential services to help individuals and families.”