Simply Ledyard CT

Holmberg Orchards in Gales Ferry

The very best Apple Crisp. No question.

Posted via email from lindadavis's posterous

Morgan Pond Cemetery

Circa 1771 - Located on Sandy Hollow Road in Ledyard CT

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Connecticut's Heaviest Pumpkin

This pumpkin at 1449.5 pounds, was grown in Preston CT by Jason Traylor, and
now resides at Holdridge Nursery in Ledyard.

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Lambtown Road in Ledyard

One of my favorite roads anytime of year, Lambtown Road is especially lovely in the fall.

What goes around comes around....

Farmer Pete is a great example of someone who believes in the Pay it Forward philosophy. Whether delivering mums as an act of kindness, helping a senior with a purchase, or simply paying for someone’s coffee in line at Dunkin Donuts, Pete has touched a lot of people. I’ve heard countless stories over the past three weeks.

It’s pay back time.  And it is coming back to Pete in a big way.  Your generosity continues to amaze all of us. Checks are arriving at P.O Box 3, Gales Ferry from as far away as New York and Massachusetts.

Thank you again.  More news coming soon.

Saving Alice Acres

The support that Alice Acres  received from the community over the past couple of weeks has me thinking. Farmer Pete  talked to me about the importance of supporting our local farm markets. One of the positive results that came from our Fall Benefit Celebration was that people showed up who told me they had never been to the farm before.

What I’m hoping is that once we get through this initial fundraising phase for Alice Acres, we can plan another celebration this spring that brings out people to support the farm by buying plants, mulch, ice cream and whatever is being sold. That is the very best way we can keep the farm open; not by donations but by our purchase power!  There are still naysayers out there; I had one tell me last week that it was only a matter of time before Alice Acres closed. I’m not buying that.

P.S.  Thanks to your generosity, Farmer Pete was able to order the product and seed for his spring plantings.  That is very good news!

For all of the posts about Saving Alice Acres, click on the Saving Alice Acres Category

A very special thank you....

There are so many people that Farmer Pete wants to thank. If I started to list all of you, I would most certainly forget someone.  So I decided to make this a blanket thank you to everyone who volunteered and to those that donated money, baked goods, and silent auction items. And a thank you to those that bought pumpkins and mums and baked goods.  I know some of you paid a whole lot more for cookies than what they were worth since the bake sale alone took in $2800!

For those that thanked me, I had very little to do with it all. Volunteers just showed up and did their jobs. The Silent Auction and Bake Sale ran like well-oiled machines. The grill gang never left their station and performed admirably. (We ate 200 hot dogs and 300 hamburgers.) People jumped in to direct traffic and sell drinks. With little time to organize and not much publicity, the whole event  just came together. I was never so proud to live in Ledyard.

I am going to make one small exception to my blanket thank you. Ethan Foltz was one of the very first people to call me when the article about Alice Acres  ran in the newspaper. Farmer Pete is pretty special to the Foltz family.  Pete  touched their lives like he has touched many of ours.  Not able to collect at school, Ethan went door to door in his neighborhood, and then stood up in Church asking for donations.

Ethan arrived on Saturday with a container with the $543.70 he collected.

Thank you Ethan. You are a shining example of  what our community is all about.

Neighbors helping Neighbors!

I never in my wildest dreams expected the kind of turnout we had today at our Alice Acres Fall Benefit Celebration.  When we hatched the idea of doing this, we decided to call it a celebration, and it certainly turned out that way. It was a celebration of our community! And thanks to all of you, we raised about $10,000 which is pretty incredible considering you did that in a very short amount of time, with very little publicity.  I’ll have more to say and more to report but for now I wanted to share my photos with you. A couple of my favorites are below but you will find more at a Photo Set I created on Flickr.

P.S.  We gave away 200 Hot Dogs, 300 Hamburgers and Farmer Pete ran out of pumpkins.  Woo Hoo!

Click Here for More Photos

 

 

Good news! Pavilion now available!

I guess not everyone likes the forecast of rain, snow and wind for a party! The group that rented the pavilion for tomorrow has canceled. We’ll be serving the hamburgers and hot dogs in the Bud Crandall Memorial Pavilion. The Silent Auction and the Bake Sale will still take place in the warm greenhouses. Overflow parking will be available at the old Gales Ferry School.

We are on for tomorrow! Rain or Shine (or snow)!

Right now there is only a “slight chance” for rain or snow tomorrow morning.  And then about a 50% chance of rain in the afternoon. Someone reminded me in an email that isn’t this how Farmer Pete found himself in his predicament in the first place; due to weather?

Just a little housekeeping about the event…

All the activity will be in and around the Greenhouse area. The people under the pavilion won’t be us.

The Silent Auction ends at 2:00PM.  You don’t have to be present to win (you’ll get a phone call) but you must place your bid prior to 2:00PM.

Jo Wood, who will be manning the Bake Sale table, will soon be working on an Alice Acres Cook Book  to be sold at Pete’s spring opening. Stop by and chat with Jo for more details.

I look forward to meeting you all tomorrow.  Stop by and introduce yourself.  We have more future plans in the works to help save Alice Acres! We want to stay in touch.

For all of the posts about Saving Alice Acres, click on the Saving Alice Acres Catagory