The story of Full Moon Farm starts over 30 years ago, but is fresh with new beginnings and plenty of heart. You can sense it as soon as you see the hand painted signs by their roadside stand.
On a small hill in Hampton, some open space stands among the scattered trees of the Last Green Valley. According to Rob, Annie, and Molly, this is the best place to see the moon rise in town. You can imagine it- tending to some late farm activities in the fall and then a large harvest moon rises bright above the trees up on the hill. Is it any wonder that they decided to name the farm Full Moon Farm?
When you stand on the hill in the day, it is just as lovely to behold: blueberry bushes and raspberry canes waking up to the warming Connecticut spring, freshly plowed fields starting to boast of green of seedlings that promise crops for the farm stand, and grass lilting in the breeze as it waits for the first cut of hay season. If it wasn’t for the tractors and electric fencing in the corner of your eye, you would have trouble guessing what century the farmland was reflecting.
All of this is with intention though. Full Moon Farm is not about large, loud machines and thousands of heads of lettuce headed for big box store shelves. Rob and Annie never intended it for that. They are a diversified farm- growing and providing for their immediate community and aiming to make it an efficient visit- carrying all the products one might need in a weekly grocery run.
This is accentuated when the old dairy barn opens up to host their farm store in the summer months. The counters and shelves burst with the organically raised produce and fruits. Local freshly baked breads tempt the shoppers, flowers brighten corners, and eggs and free-range pastured meats are stocked to complete a person’s meal. While folks wait for these glorious open farm stand Saturdays in summer, there is always the self-serve stand stocked to help tide them over until the weekend.
Though Rob and Annie started the farm, their daughter Molly is stepping further into the role of growing and caring for much of these products. You can tell they have helped to instill not just a care for the land in her, but a dedication to people that she is feeding. She says that “it’s an honor,” for her be able to feed folks. “There aren’t many community spaces in Hampton, and to be able to provide for people everything they need in one place, while engaging in consecutive conversations with folks, is so special.”
Molly brushes her fingers over the seedlings and welcomes them as they wait their planting in the greenhouse. She calls to the flock of free roaming chickens, and they come running. She reaches to scratch the brow of one of the heifers and it inclines toward her. She leans on a fence post and talks about the land she looks over as something that fills her with awe and humility.
Though the moon has been rising over this land for millennia, Molly, and the people that she brings to the farm, is the new moment that is rising on the little farm’s over 30 year horizon. Rob and Annie bought the land, cleared it, prepared it, and shared it with her as she was growing up. They let her know who was eating the food they grew and why it was important to feed your neighbors. None of them knew that she would be the one continuing the story of Full Moon Farm. That she would be making sure her parent's love of feeding the community was still making the little farm be the bright comforting light that it has always been. And this little farm certainly does shine bright.