HCT program brings SHORE students to beautiful Taylor-Bray Farm
Harwich Conservation Trust (HCT) naturalist Andrea Higgins led a group of students from the Monomoy Regional School District’s SHORE Program on a fantastic journey to Taylor-Bray Farm in Yarmouth Port recently.
The SHORE Program (Students Have Opportunities for Recreation and Employment) is for young adults ages 18-22, who face challenges with autism and intellectual disabilities. It provides students with vocational and transitional services with an emphasis on employment training and life skills.
Sponsored by HCT, Higgins leads the SHORE students on adventures of curiosity and discovery. To keep HCT family programs free for youngsters this year, a generous HCT donor provided a $15,000 challenge if it could be matched by another $15,000 from other donors.
Please consider a donation to HCT to keep these important educational experiences available to families, regardless of income. Click here to learn more.
Here is Andrea’s account of a fabulous day of learning at Taylor-Bray Farm:
Blue skies, sunshine, braying donkeys, a mooing cow, and the sweet clucks of chickens greeted the SHORE Program and I on a recent afternoon at the Taylor-Bray Farm.
We were warmly greeted with bright cheery smiles from Lisa McIntyre, Taylor-Bray Farm Board Member and Farm Volunteer, who welcomed us to the farm with historical facts about the property and excitedly shared an opportunity to hold baby chicks, hatched just two weeks ago.
Students gently caressed the chicks, feeling their warmth and the softness of their feathers and we learned all about the different chicken varieties that live at the farm.
Next, we entered the chicken pen to feed the mature gals some mealworms. A colorful display of feathered friends decorated the inside of the chicken coop as chickens, adorned with beautiful feathers in browns, whites, lavenders and black, scratched in the sandy floor of their home. Each student held their hands flat with worms in their palms, and the chickens gently gobbled up the snacks.
Lisa scooped up beautiful eggs from the nesting boxes, with hues of lovely light blue, pale green, speckled tan and creamy white.
A group of students from the Monomoy Regional School District’s SHORE Program visited Taylor-Bray Farm in Yarmouth Port recently for a Harwich Conservation Trust program with naturalist Andrea Higgins. Photo by Lisa McIntyre
A cow named ‘Spaghetti’
SHORE students then had an opportunity to go into the goat and sheep area with Lisa to feed the goats and admire the adorable lambs that were born on the farm this spring.
Barn swallows swooped about, gobbling up flying insects like aerial acrobats in the blue skies above, as we admired “Spaghetti,” the farm’s Scottish Highland cow.
Spaghetti moseyed over to the fence mooing for some pats, scratches, and handfuls of hay. SCORE students took turns feeding the appreciative and gentle cow.
Lisa unlocked the gate and invited us to visit the donkeys. SHORE students listened and learned about the resident donkeys and gave them affectionate pats and snacks of fresh hay.
The 22-acre Taylor-Bray Farm is absolutely beautiful and boasts sweeping views of the salt marsh. There are also beehives, a large patch of highbush blueberries, an AmeriCorps-built boardwalk leading to the marsh, and a wooded walking trail.
All aboard for a hayride
Together, my curious and kind students and I wandered out to view the salt marsh and we marveled at the osprey on the giant nest in the marsh, bordered by cattails, swamp maples, and skunk cabbage. What an adventure!
Lisa and Taylor-Bray Farm volunteers had a very special grand finale surprise for us: a hayride! As bright as the sun was shining, it seemed dim in comparison to the smiles on our students’ faces as they boarded the wagon, hitched behind an antique tractor, for a ride around the property, through the woods and back to the barn.
What a gift to be welcomed to such an incredible place! Taylor-Bray Farm board members and volunteers showed us the VIP treatment. It indeed is an absolute honor and gift for me to be in the company of this class!
SHORE students are kind, patient and curious students and their supportive and amazing teachers are indeed an inspiration. I am so grateful for this incredible community collaboration.
Thank you, Lisa and Taylor-Bray Farm members, for teaching us so much and for taking such excellent care of the property and animals. I adore teaching the SHORE Program about nature and Cape Cod’s flora and fauna and I have learned so much from the SHORE students!
I admire how kind and gentle and supportive this class and teaching staff is with each other. I am honored to be part of the SHORE experience and touched by our community’s support creating opportunities for all of us to experience the beauty and wonder of Cape Cod.
HCT is grateful to partner with Taylor-Bray Farm for this program. The farm is a unique conservation destination that also has historical significance stretching back over the last 10,000 years. From the first Native peoples to call this land home, the establishment of a homestead in the 1640s in one of the first towns of the Plymouth Colony, to present day, there is much to learn and remember about this land.
Today, the farm is owned by the Town of Yarmouth and through a partnership with the non-profit Taylor-Bray Farm Conservation Association, the farm has been kept running and is open daily from dawn to dusk. There is no entry fee, but donations are greatly appreciated.
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