Wednesday Walk: Wood Island
Wednesday Walk: Wood Island
A local farm tragedy, a long gone park, and #NoNewClothes on overdrive
Welcome to the Quarantine Creatives newsletter, a companion to my podcast of the same name, which explores creativity, art, and big ideas as we continue to live through this pandemic.
Every Wednesday, I share random thoughts and tidbits with links to let you do some exploring. I call these Wednesday Walks, as it’s the type of conversation we might have walking down a path in the woods- the topics are free flowing, sometimes related, sometimes not.
If you like what you’re reading and want to support this publication, please consider a free subscription to have this newsletter delivered to your inbox:
Another Farm in Need
A few weeks ago, I shared in this space the story of Red Fire Farm, a Massachusetts organic grower that was raising funds to keep the farm going after not anticipating the dramatic effects of inflation on the farm operation this year.
This week, I want to share the story of another local farm that’s met with a crisis and is in need of some community support.
We discovered Lilac Hedge Farm about a year ago and have since been regular customers. They raise pastured chicken and pork, grass-fed beef and lamb, and sell other farm products like pastured eggs. They have a really nice retail setup on the farm (which includes an ice cream stand, local craft beers, and an amazing view). We buy their products at farmer’s markets and have even done home delivery a few times.
Lilac Hedge has a pretty remarkable story. Quoting owner Ryan MacKay in one of his email newsletters:
“Many farms have been around for generations, however, I started Lilac Hedge Farm in 2011 at the age of 20 while in school full-time and working a part-time job… Prior to 2016, I was renting land and raising animals on 200 acres across 5 different towns… I was finally able to purchase my own 350-acre farm in Holden in 2016. Then is 2020 I was able to purchase an additional nearly 50 acres in Rutland…
We have gone from selling at two farmers markets a week while taking classes at UMass, to an average of ten a week during the summer months with a booming home delivery business and year-round Farm Stand. We were once keeping 20 to 30 cows on five different properties and now have over 150 cows grazing happily on our own home farm.”
It is an inspiring story, especially when considering that all this growth and expansion is being overseen by somebody who is barely over 30!
Unfortunately, there was a recent tragedy at Lilac Hedge that is putting some serious strains on the farm.
One of the silos at the farm caught fire because of spontaneous combustion, likely caused by the silage being stored too dry, a result of a drought stricken summer here in the Northeast. This silage was being stored for the animals to consume all winter when the pastures aren’t growing, and according to MacKay, those crops represent a serious time and financial commitment:
“Growing, harvesting, and storing feed in our silo is an all-summer-long project. We maintain hundreds of acres consisting of both our own fields as well as rented fields in 5 different towns. This year was an incredible accomplishment as it was our first year filling the entire silo, and would have been the first year that we did not have to buy in additional feed.
Thousands of labor hours were spent mowing, raking, tedding, chopping, trucking, running the blower and table to push food into the silo, and preparing equipment and maintaining the silo. It is so sad to see all that hard work and investment go up in flames.”
Lilac Hedge has established a Go Fund Me page to help offset some of the costs of rebuilding the silo and supplementing the animal feed this winter. If you’re interested in learning more or contributing, you can do so here.
It’s yet another reminder of the fragility of our farms, especially when they are sustainably managed and owned locally. It’s ideal when these enterprises can be profitable on their own, but sometimes they need a little bump from the community to keep them thriving.
What is Wood Island?
When I first moved to Massachusetts, I lived for several years in Revere, MA, a city just north of Boston near Logan Airport. My apartment was right on the Blue Line subway, which made an easy ride into downtown Boston.
Many of the Blue Line station names correlated to the nearby area, but there was one that I never quite understood. The stop immediately after Logan Airport is known as “Wood Island.” The station isn’t near much. There are some service buildings for the airport immediately outside and it’s a few hundred yards from the end of runway 15R. I was always curious what Wood Island was supposed to even mean.
Thanks to GBH reporter Jeremy Siegel, I now have an answer. Jeremey hosts the local version of Morning Edition here in Boston (I interviewed his afternoon counterpart Arun Roth on the podcast last year) and Siegel has been filing incredible reports this week about the history of Wood Island, a story I with which I was wholly unfamiliar.
It turns out that Wood Island was once a park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the man behind many of Boston’s most beautiful public spaces, Central and Prospect Parks in New York, and the area surrounding the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.
Wood Island was 50 acres of green space, athletic fields, and beaches. It closed in the 1960s to allow for expansion at Logan Airport. Siegel’s reporting includes recollections from people in the neighborhood of the park:
“‘I was two years old when they took Wood Island Park,’ [Vice president of the East Boston–based environmental group Airport Impact Relief Chris] Marchi said, standing in the industrial area at the end of Neptune Road — a spot that once served as an entrance to the grand park.
‘My mother said she was walking me in a stroller to get down to the park. And when she got there, it was all fenced up and it was gone,’ he said.”
I loved living in Revere, and spent a lot of time in East Boston. As Siegel points out, it has always been a diverse place:
“East Boston has been an immigrant hub for centuries — first for Jewish and Irish communities in the 1800s, then mostly for Italian immigrants during Wood Island Park’s heyday. Now, the neighborhood is home to the largest Latino community in Boston. Hispanic and Latino residents comprise half of Eastie’s population.”
However, it is also a place that has borne the brunt of continued airport expansion. The loss of Wood Island park is one piece of that, but there have also been lingering health concerns that may be tied to the planes at the airport, the traffic coming in and out of the airport, or both:
“According to a community health needs assessment report conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital, 63% of adults in Eastie have obesity, which is significantly higher than most neighborhoods in the city… And it’s a food desert, meaning residents have limited access to nutritious food. Residents also have higher rates of ‘chronic sadness,’ according to Mass General.”
Reading Siegel’s reporting, I was met with mixed emotions. A part of me was certainly wistful for the days of a beautiful waterfront park in East Boston designed by one of the most prominent landscape architects in history. But on the other hand, I think growth at Logan Airport has been a net positive for the region overall.
Logan is an urban airport. It has two rapid transit lines that service it (the Blue Line subway requires a shuttle bus, while the Silver Line picks up right at the terminals). It is within minutes of Downtown Boston, whether by car, taxi, subway, or boat (yes, the airport has water taxis that cross Boston Harbor).
Washington’s Reagan National Airport and New York’s LaGuardia Airport both fall into these categories, but urban airports like this near the city center are rare.
The alternative to expansion at Logan in the 1960s may have been a newer suburban airport, similar to Washington Dulles, Denver, or Houston Bush Intercontinental. These airports can accommodate more air traffic, but they are also difficult to access without a car and require a long drive to reach the center of town. Moving Boston’s airport to the suburban fringes may have had adverse effects on traffic and pollution too.
What this report makes me think about more than anything is that there is no perfect solution in this world. No matter what decision is made, it will never be 100% right. I think it’s important to acknowledge the consequences that come with these decisions and to work to mitigate these effects.
Some of the mitigation efforts that the airport has undertaken are discussed in the piece, but local residents are asking for more action to protect their health and revitalize their neighborhood.
If you’re interested in diving more into this interesting topic, check out Jeremy’s Siegel’s report for GBH. Two reports in the series have aired to date, with more on the way.
#NoNewClothes- Week 8
Ever since interviewing Amory Sivertson a few weeks ago and chatting about her year of not buying any new clothes, I’ve been inspired to take on the challenge myself. I’m now on Week 8 and have been sharing this journey with all of you in my Wednesday Walks each week.
Today, I wanted to discuss somebody else’s journey with not buying anything new. Ginger Zee is the Chief Meteorologist on ABC News and has been a champion of sustainability in all forms for a long time. She was a guest on the podcast back in 2020, describing her approach to reporting on climate change back then.
I happened to see Ginger’s recent appearance on The Rachel Ray Show, where she describes a three month challenge of not buying any new clothes:
“For three months, I thought I could buy with consignment and second hand, but not purchasing new. Shopping my own closet and renting. It was so easy I’ve never stopped.”
Zee has now expanded her challenge to not only include not buying new clothes, but not buying anything new:
“Now I’ve taken on this new challenge inspired by a woman named Ashley Piper and she is doing this ‘no new things’ and she’s done it for quite a while. And that means no new anything.”
The holiday season is often focused on material gifts, but Zee encourages people to break out of that mold when gift giving this holiday season:
“It’s about taking the pause, being thoughtful about how you’re giving, really working on experiences.”
My family’s Christmas party this year is using a gift exchange, where rather than buying for everybody, you buy for one specific person. Homemade and consumable gifts are being encouraged over material possessions, which I think is a nice change.
If you’re interested in hearing Ginger describe her "No New” challenge, here’s the full clip:
Thank you for reading! I always love hearing your thoughts, so please drop a line in the comments. And have a great week.
I publish new issues every Wednesday and Sunday. Sign up to always receive the latest issue and support my work:
Other Wednesday Walks
If you’d like to catch up on past episodes of the Quarantine Creatives podcast, they can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Please consider sharing this with a friend that you think might enjoy it, or better yet, share it on social media so you can tell hundreds of friends!
If you’ve missed past issues of this newsletter, they are available to read here.
Stay Safe!
Heath