Sticks and Stones Farm

Tim Currier bought the sixty-acre farm in Newtown with self-sufficiency in mind. He was a farmer and master stone mason, and he had majored in archaeology and spent two years in the Peace Corps in Malaysia, where he started a preschool and taught English. For years the barn held the machines and tools used to harvest and move stone. The land was a working yard, and its two crops were moss and boulders.

Then the place changed. Currier built roads, irrigation, composting and solar systems, along with several cabins made from natural materials. "A piece of Maine – in Connecticut," is how he describes the farm. The site says that over the past twenty years different people and ideas have moved through and left their mark, and that the farm now draws visitors in its own right, not only as a base for the stone business.

The ground itself is the main draw. Steep roads cut into the hills lead to trails, a fifty-four-foot labyrinth of stone and moss, and woods that hold beavers, owls, deer, fox and coyote. The farm is open to the public from sunrise to sunset, with dogs on leash and the cabins left to their guests. The Stone Barn anchors the property. It is a 2,000-square-foot room with electricity and a large kitchen, used for workshops, ceremonies and business retreats. Six handcrafted cabins are rented through Airbnb.

Several groups use the land for their own work. Two Coyotes Wilderness School, a nature-mentoring non-profit founded in 2000, runs summer camps and homeschool programs. Real Food CT tends a one-acre Century Garden and gives the produce to local food banks. Rowanwood Farm leads llama walks, the Connecticut Death Collective holds gatherings, and Love Has a Home, founded by Rev. Bill Donaldson, curates events at the farm. The moss and stone trade continues alongside all of this, including moss trays, mossy boulders and dry-stacked stone walls built without cement.