The Crook Farm in Foster Township will be teeming with activity today, with area residents splitting firewood, removing small trees and tackling other improvement projects at the property that harkens back to the 1800s.
The efforts will be part of the Bradford Landmark Society’s fourth annual annual “Beaver Day.”
“It’s (‘Beaver Day’) been a wonderful way to fix up the farm and a great chance for local kids and college students to lend a hand to a community project and get hands-on experience and have fun while doing it,” said Bradford Landmark Society curator Sally Costik.
Expected to turn out for the event are 20 students from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford under the direction of Tonya Ackley, Pitt-Bradford director of community engagement, and her student coordinator Rachel Brune; as well as 20 adults and children from the Bradford Christian Youth Corps.
Also, Bradford Landmark Society workers and volunteers and board of directors are slated to clean up the Crook Farm.
All in all, the volunteers will have a busy day ahead of them, beginning at 9 a.m. and lasting until around 2 p.m.
Today’s agenda includes replacing old landscape timbers around the long flower beds with railroad ties; chipping branches and creating a mulch pile; building a workstation in the tractor shed; splitting firewood and removing small trees, bushes and weeds along the perimeter of the property to open up the grounds for future expansion.
In addition, Flagg’s Tree Service of Lewis Run plans to dispatch personnel and a chipper to the Crook Farm. The Home Depot donated $200 in garden tools and equipment, Costik said.
“Boy Scouts do it (‘Beaver Day’) at Elk Lick Boy Scout Camp twice a year, fall and summer,” she said. “And, since there were several projects that needed doing at the Crook Farm, we thought we’d emulate the scouts and hold our own ‘Beaver Day,’ Crook Farm style. And it was, and has continued to be, tremendously successful.”
The Crook Farm is home to a bank building, a school house, a farmhouse, a barn, a carpenter, a blacksmith shop and a railroad station. During the year, the Bradford Landmark Society hosts the Crook Farm School Program, which gives area fourth- and fifth-graders a taste of 1800s education; and the Crook Farm Fair Old Time Country Music Festival.
