Historic Barn at Ohana Family Camp to be Preserved

Great news!!!! The State of Vermont’s Division of Historic Preservation, has granted the Aloha Foundation a $10,000 matching grant to start renovation on Ohana’s historic barn, one of the few original buildings from the 1800’s hillside farm that preceded Shanty Shane and more recently Ohana Camp. . The state awarded this grant to a handful of worthy renovation projects, with the goal of preserving the historic barns of Vermont, such an important part of our landscape and our cultural history. The award of this grant, and the exciting possibilities, reminded me of the days when this barn and the adjoining fields were part of a subsistence farm over 130 years ago, and the day I spent haying in that field last summer.
The Robinson’s Family has been haying these fields since the 1800's. Their ancestors, the Bacon Family, worked this land, now called Ohana Camp, before there were motorized vehicles or even electricity – most likely before the civil war. So it was with that wonderful sense of history that I had volunteered to help with the haying of the main field late last summer. With Ken Robinson, his wife Janice, their daughter Jessica, their granddaughter Charlotte, and her friend AJ, we set about to harvest the golden hay on one of the most beautiful days I can remember. The sky was a clear blue juxtaposed with the late summer green of the woods and the warm hue of golden grass. Jessica and her mother, Janice, drove the tractors and turned the hay to dry one last time. Ken drove his ancient, but reliable, Allis Chalmers tractor which pulled the baler. Charlotte, AJ and I walked behind and threw bales of hay onto the wagon. As we worked and talked, I felt a connection with this land and its historic use; hay, animals, even playing fields. The old homestead barn was the back drop for our day. I wondered how many years it had seen haying like this, and how many bales of hay had been stored in it. By mid-afternoon we were ready for a break. Like magic, Janice, Ken’s wife, who had stopped turning hay and left for a bit, arrived with warm homemade bread and butter, and cold water. It could not have been more tasty. We loaded the wagons with 190 bales of hay that afternoon and headed for the barn at the Robinson homestead up the road. As we unloaded, Jessica talked about the way to stack the hay efficiently and showed how to put salt down to keep the fire danger low. She backed the hay wagons around with the skill of a woman who had grown up driving farm equipment. Now the field was cut, tidy and ready to grow next year's crop of hay. Ken, in his dry Vermont way, commented that the field was a little “bumpy,” meaning that it had quite a few ruts from tractors haying when it was too wet. But he added, “got more good hay than I expected from it.” That day, as I worked with the three generations of Robinsons, I had the sense that this land was part of a continuum, and that we, as stewards of this new piece of property, had the responsibility to respect it as the extended Robinson Family has done for many generations. It was a beautiful day that I will hold in my memory for a long time. On cold winter nights, I will think of cows munching on that hay, in some warm barn down the road, as they have for generations, and as they did here at the Ohana Camp barn when it was a small hillside subsistence farm. It is good to have a connection to this land.

Deb Williams