WINTHROP — KLT will hold a conservation celebration at the historic Fayette Baptist Church on Saturday, July 7, from 9 to 11 a.m. with strawberries, music by the Rogers Brothers Fiddle-Cello Duo, visits to see the Meadow Brook farm animals and optional hikes on the Meadow Brook Farm trail and to KLT’s Sturtevant easement scenic lookout. The event is free, the public is welcome.
On May 31, Meadow Brook Farm, owned by Berndt and Elaine Graf, Fayette, was permanently conserved by an agricultural conservation easement held by Kennebec Land Trust and the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. The easement protects the only working dairy farm in Fayette and valuable wetlands and wildlife habitat along Meadow Brook. In addition, it provides for public access and hiking and snowmobile trails.
The easement was purchased with funds contributed from the Land for Maine’s Future Program and KLT; and with support from KLT members, the Maine Department of Agriculture, Meadow Brook Farm Project Manager, Jerry Bley; and the Fields Pond and Cricket Foundations.
The Grafs’ easement protects the only working dairy farm in Fayette and valuable wetlands and wildlife habitat along Meadow Brook. In addition, it provides for public access and hiking trails.
The Sturtevant Family eighth-generation farm and tourism business, Home-Nest Farm Bed & Breakfast, is adjacent to Meadow Brook Farm. In 2002, the Sturtevants donated a 22.5 acre conservation easement to KLT, the Sturtevant Farm Scenic Area, which includes farm fields and a scenic view of Maine’s western mountains. This summer the Sturtevants are donating a second easement to KLT, 60-acres including working forestland and wetlands connected to the Graf’s Meadow Brook Farm. The new easement will provide for a non-motorized trail network linking the two conservation properties.
The Sturtevant and Graf easements will have public access points on the Bamford Hill and Asa Hutchinson Roads. A new one-mile hiking trail will be completed for the Meadow Brook Farm conservation celebration on July 7.
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