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August 31, 2006

Weir Farm a hands-on experience for kids

By: Kathryn Higgins
Another summer day, another opportunity to take my kids on a fun yet educational trip, something that would engage their budding intellects while providing an opportunity for exercise, something inexpensive or perhaps even free, that would inspire them to greater aspirations than playing Webkins and Club Penguin on the Internet and fighting over the remote. Of course, Rye Playland was the first thing I thought of. As much as I tried, I couldn't make it fit my criteria, so I cast about again and decided on Weir Farm in Wilton.

Weir Farm, designated a National Historic Site in 1990, features 74 acres that include a visitors' center, antique homes and studios, a pond, woods and gardens. Adjacent to the farm is the preserve, with another 110 acres of land.

On our way there, we stopped at Orem's diner in Wilton for breakfast. While we ate eggs and pancakes with plastic packets of high-fructose corn syrup disguised as jam and maple syrup, I broke it to Charlotte and Matthew that our destination wasn't really a farm with ducks and chickens and cows, but rather an artist's former residence with a nature preserve and hiking paths.

The kids, now alert to the potentially educational aspect of our outing, listened resignedly to "The Hobbit" on CD as we drove the rest of the way there.

When we arrived, we watched a brief video on the history of the park. We learned that American artist Julian Alden Weir bought the farm in 1882 for $10 and a European painting that he had in his collection. Weir had just come back from France, where he had attended a French Impressionism exhibit that gave him a headache. ("It's a chamber of horrors," he wrote to a friend.)

Weir and his family spent summers on the farm, where he and his artist friends enjoyed painting "en pleine aire" (in plain air), or outside. Inspired by the landscape, Weir abandoned his realist style and, ironically, ended up becoming one of America's important Impressionists.

After the video, friendly park rangers offered my kids a junior ranger booklet to fill out, along with a little artists' supply box.

Armed with the junior ranger paraphernalia, water bottles and a camera, we set off on a hike to Weir Pond. We entered the preserve through a gap in a stone wall and made our way down a curving path through meadow and forest.

After crossing a footbridge over a brook, we came upon a stunning view of the pond. My kids worked avidly on their junior ranger booklets, answering questionnaires, doing word puzzles and keeping their eyes open for the nature scavenger hunt. (Where's the hollyhock?) The booklet, the artist's perspective and the absence of their usual suburban distractions had made them hyper-aware of the nature around them.

A frog they found was subjected to numerous photos, several attempts at capture and two small artists drawing its portrait in the designated spot in their booklets, a la Weir himself.

Time in nature's playground went by much too quickly and I had to hustle us back for a guided tour of the grounds and artists' studios. A mistake, as it turned out, because the tour was geared more toward adults and we had already learned much of the information during the video. But we stuck with it because the tour was the only way to get into the artists' studios. (The house will not be open for another year or so.)

When it was time to leave, the rangers reminded us that the kids were entitled to a junior ranger badge, something I had forgotten, but the kids had not. Checking their booklets to see how much was completed was merely a formality and Charlotte and Matthew were as pleased to get their plastic badges as they would have been to get a neon polyester stuffed animal at the Playland arcade.

To my surprise, the kids kept at their junior ranger booklets all the way home, going over their frog sketches and counting how many tasks they had completed.

We are looking forward to going back to walk some more of the nature trails, have a picnic and perhaps even set up an easel and do some painting, as many artists do. But next time we go, I will ask for my own junior ranger booklet to do with the kids. The Weir Farm National Historic Site is at 735 Nod Hill Road, Wilton. For more information, call 203-834-1896 or visit www.nps.gov/wefa. There is a donation box in the visitors center, otherwise the park is free to visit.

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Posted by connpost on August 31, 2006 10:53 AM

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