A Great Day in Easton

A wonderful Saturday in Easton actually began on Friday when I wheeled my new 96 gallon recycling container up to the house. The wheeled beast is the Abrams battle tank of trash receptacles dwarfing both the regular trash container and the little wheeled cart I recently bought to supplement my green recycling boxes. Single stream recycling is a great idea and I think I have several trash cycles coming up where I'll need every gallon of the new container.

On to Saturday! Jeff Hammond had reminded me that the Friends of Easton Gardens was having a weeding party at the Rockery and Italian Gardens. A horde of about twenty friendly gardeners did indeed descend on the Italian Garden to remove a lot of weedy growth. In three hours this beautiful garden was restored again to its high summer beauty. There's lots of color in the garden at present with two varieties of hydrangea, lavender, and roses in bloom. The Italian Garden is a wonderful addition to the library complex and the Friends of Easton Gardens is a great new addition to organizations in town. The group that was there on Saturday united folks from their 30s to their 70s an enviable range for any group. A couple of hours spent weeding is a great way to make a contribution to the future of the town.

Around 11 I joined about 50 people for the dedication of Povoas Park on Center Street. The Povoas-Pires family came together to give the town a beautiful new pocket park. The family donated the land, the design and the organizational ability and the CPA and Town Meeting spent a little money to get the job done. The sidewalk along Center Street is a hidden asset of the town. This route and the continuation along Depot Street to Five Corners is the most used walking/jogging, stroller path in town. Having a pocket park with benches, shade, and a water bubbler for man and beast gives people a spot to stop, rest, and talk to their neighbors. The dedication ceremony itself was a fun event with lots of family pride on display. The little park is a nice tribute to the Portuguese families that made the neighborhood their home in the 1920s and after.

The final event of a great day in Easton occurred in the fields of Langwater Farm. Over a hundred people joined the leasees of the farm in celebrating their first year in operation. In that first year 18 acres of land has been put into production and four greenhouses have been built. Proceeds from the event went to Land for Good, the non-profit organization that had matched the farmers with the Ames property. Delicious food from the farm, great conversation, and hayrides through the fields recalled an earlier era. Brief speeches emphasized the vision of David Ames and the Ames family to bring back agriculture to Easton. In the year since the opening of Langwater Farm, Stonehill has opened its own student based farm to provide produce to nearby food pantries, and the town has created an Agricultural Commission to educate people about the benefits of farms and community gardens. Stay tuned as this local produce concept really begins to take off we'll have more blogs about it in the future.