Tuesday, July 20, 1999

A feel for farming

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City kids come to learn from animals and vegetables

BY CINDY KRANZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Samuel Little gets a close look at a young duck at Kinderfield Farm in Sardinia. (Jeff Swinger photos) | ZOOM |

        SARDINIA — Ten preschoolers sit perched on a plank at Kinderfield Farm, waiting their turns to milk Pushy, an Oberhasli goat.

        “I milk every morning and evening, so you're doing my morning milking, like farmers,” says farm director Elaine May. “You're all milking so well.” When they're finished, she asks if anyone would like to taste goat's milk. Hands shoot up.

        Now for the bad news.

        They have to catch a squirt directly from the goat. Hands fall down.

        “Oh, gross,” one child says, grimacing.

        Mrs. May's 4-year-old son, Sam, demonstrates how it's done to the nine city and suburban kids assembled at his Sardinia farm. Chin awash in milk, he smiles and sits down, proud of his accomplishment.

TO SIGN UP

Kinderfield Farm has openings in its Homesteaders, Yearlings and Sprouts programs, which range from $30 to $350. New fall programs include: school and family visits, Scouts, 4-H, youth groups, birthday parties and Pumpkin Days. (937) 446-3001.

        Feeling the preschooler peer pressure, four others tentatively come forward to test it out. It's not cow's milk. It's not cold. And, it's not in a cup. But, boy, is it fun to try something totally new.

Three programs
        Like hundreds of summer camps now operating in the Tristate, Kinderfield Farm tries to give children the kinds of experiences they might not have otherwise. At Kinderfield, city children come to know the joys of farm life, even if it's only for a day or a week.

        Kinderfield Farm offers three farm sessions: Sprouts, a one-day program for ages 3-6; Yearlings, two days and one night for ages 5-8, and Homesteaders, a week-long overnight camp for ages 6-12. Campers sleep in bunk beds in the farmhouse, built in 1905, and help cook and care for animals and tend the garden.

        Besides milking the goat on this day, the Sprouts feed and pet ducks, feed baby goats with bottles, brush a chocolate brown miniature donkey named Izzy, cuddle bunnies, make nature crafts and play games. They visit the garden, where they sample carrots and lettuce, pick tomatoes, chew on a blade of grass and joyously run through six rows of sweet corn.

        They sit in circles playing games and talking about farm animals, their names, their sounds. The bay of a donkey and bleat of a goat punctuate their conversation. Two friendly cats, Butch and Sundance, weave in and out of the circle, rubbing against the kids.

        Throughout the day, the children are given short courses on animal care. “These baby ducks are maybe 20 days old,” Mrs. May says, lifting a duck out of a crate. “They're really fragile. When you hold a baby duck, you have to hold them really carefully with two hands, and you can't hold them by their neck because it could hurt them.”

Gabriel Vargus and a small goat romp through a field. | ZOOM |

        And Mrs. May fields animal questions.

        “Do cows make chocolate milk?” one child asks.

        “There might be a magical cow that does somewhere, but our goats just make white milk,” Mrs. May says with a smile. “Kinda boring.”

Third summer of camps
        Mrs. May, a 31-year-old former teacher, and her husband, Michael, 37, an environmental engineer, bought the 92-acre Brown County farm in 1991. “We wanted to have a farm, not only for our own children, but to create a program for children to come out and experience the farm,” she says.

        The Mays started Kinderfield Farm summer camps in 1997. The camps, Mrs. May says, allow children to explore the world and gain experiences beyond the normal classroom setting.

        “They drink milk from a goat. They see a field and giggle with glee as they run across it. It's a different kind of learning than in a classroom. It's a more relaxed setting. It broadens them. They know more about life than they would otherwise.”

        A former Montessori preschool teacher at New School and Children's Meeting House, Mrs. May takes a Montessori approach with the camps — respect for children as individuals while meeting their academic, social, emotional and physical needs.

        At Kinderfield Farm, children learn respect for life as they interact with the animals. One child discovers a caterpillar and implores another not to step on it. They plant green beans in containers to take home and foster.

Maya DeCresce-Carter bushes a donkey's tail. | ZOOM |

"I'm not done yet'
        Michele DeCresce of Fairfield brought her 3-year-old daughter, Maya, to Kinderfield Farm for the first time. Her 8-year-old daughter, Leah, enrolled in the week-long Homesteaders program last summer and returned this year.

        “Leah absolutely loved it, and she had no separation anxiety,” Ms. DeCresce says. “When I came to pick her up, her first words were, "What are you doing here? I'm not done yet.”'

        Kinderfield Farm has been a good experience for Leah, who has ADD (attention deficit disorder), her mother says.

        “ADD kids can tend to be frustrated easily. There's a serenity out here that she seems to flow with, and it's good for her. That's why we came back. It's a healing effect, actually, being out here,” Ms. DeCresce says.

        Now that Maya is old enough, it's natural to bring her to the farm, as well. At day's end, Maya talks about her favorite things about camp.

        “Holding the rabbits and the bunnies and feeding the animals and playing outside,” she says.

        “I like this place. That's why I want to come here again. How about the day after this?”

       

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