| JULY 2, 2010 -- Bravo, Columbia. You get it and you did it.
While dozens of open space parcels have been purchased across the state over the years, many sit unused with no parking areas or trails blazed through them. This is not the case with the 135-acre Szegda Farm in the heart of this northeast Connecticut town.
It has not one, but two large gravel parking areas. There is a community garden. An old-fashioned hand pump stands nearby - bringing back memories of a simpler time. There are two loop trails blazed by Eagle Scouts into the woodlands and across rock ledges, with plans for more in the future. A local farmer still cuts grass for hay in a nearby field.
And on Saturday, the town is holding Szegda Farm Day, a day and night celebration of agriculture and the open space the town acquired in 2008. A day that Ann Dunnack, chairwoman of the Szegda Farm Management Committee, hopes will introduce area residents to the charms of the step-back-in-time farm.
"And I still get people coming up to me and saying 'You know, I haven't been out there. Where is it exactly?' " Dunnack said. "We want to showcase this place and show people that you can continue to use farms and at the same time protect and conserve open space."
During my visit to the farm, a woman and her two daughters were working their plot in the community garden. The two girls were feverishly priming the pump, bringing back memories of my summers spent at a place called "the marsh cabin" at the edge of Cape Cod Bay. There was no electricity or running water, so we used a hand pump in the kitchen to cook dinner and wash dishes. The times our family spent there are still my fondest summer memories, and the sound of the water spilling from the pump brought me back there.
A path through a pasture filled with wildflowers runs from the community garden to a series of loop trails, both easy, 3/4-mile jaunts through the woods. The first, marked with purple blazes, travels around a red maple swamp and through the fern-covered ground of a young forest.
My favorite trail is the yellow-blazed path that branches off from the purple. Following it counter-clockwise takes visitors past an imposing rock ledge down into a deep grove of hemlocks. One of the hemlocks is the largest specimen I've seen in the state. The trail goes up a steep incline to the top of a moss- and lichen-covered ridge. The purple trail returns visitors to the field past a white pine - an imposing giant at the edge of the field.
Come visit a place where a town has not only saved its land, but also its agricultural heritage as well.
"This is not only about preserving open space," Dunnack said. "It's about getting back to our roots and showing children eggs and milk don't just come in a carton."
Turn on Route 87 south at the junction with Route 66. Take a left on Szegda Road and left at the stop sign. The farm day runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with a butterfly workshop at noon and firefly workshop at 9 p.m. Events include nature workshops, hikes and animals, ice cream and cheese from local farms.
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