Welcome to the Hallock Farm Sustainability Trail. This is Richard Wines. I’m a great-great nephew of Halsey and Emilie Hallock, the last couple to raise a family in the old Homestead. Like most farms of the time, the Hallock Farm was a model of sustainable living. “Waste not, want not” was their motto. No garbage truck ever visited because there was no garbage to cart away! No electric lines. No gasoline engines. “Reduce, reuse, recycle” was part of the culture, not a slogan. The farm could have been “zero waste” certified. The Hallocks even practiced what we would call gray water recycling and had four rainwater capture systems. They didn’t know the terms sustainability, recycling or ecological. These words hadn’t been invented then — but they definitely described the way the Hallocks lived.

We invite you to follow these signs with QR codes around the Hallock Farm to learn more about how the family practiced sustainable living a century or more ago. We also encourage you to think about the relevance of these practices today.

Now let me introduce you to my great-great uncle, Halsey Hallock.

“Good day to you! Welcome to my farm. I’m so glad you could visit us today.

When I was a lad – back a decade before the Civil War – my father was very indulgent. He let me replant my grandfather’s old orchard hee-aa with dozens of new trees. I had to have the best varieties, the prettiest ones in the catalogue with all its beautiful pictures. All this was a young fellow’s foolishness – for you may say – did you expect to eat loads of apples.

But for my 101 years we were self-sufficient in fruit – never had to buy an apple. And we never wasted any of ‘em. We dried some for the winter. We sold some. We made some into cider – although not the hard kind Grandfather used to make. We’re teetotalers now, so I never touched the stuff in my life. If the cider went bad, we didn’t throw that away either – we made it into apple cider vinegar. And finally, any apples we couldn’t use, we fed to our horses, cows and pigs. My, how they loved those apples!

As you wander around my farm, my son Hal and my daughters Bessie and Ella and a few of the good people who worked hee-aa over the years are waiting to tell you about all the ways we reused, repaired or repurposed almost everything.

Now wander on over to meet my daughter Bessie. She’s waiting for you by white picket fence beyond the far end of the sheep pen.”