Farmers' picnic

Photo: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab

Farmers' picnic
Just inside the site boundary, secluded from most of Fermilab, sits Leonard Baumann's rickety red barn. Baumann, like 55 other farmers, relocated 40 years ago to make way for the construction of Fermilab. Today, grasses have overtaken the fields and barns have been torn down, but the farming community survives.

In May, the 10th annual Fermilab Farmers' Picnic attracted nearly 100 people to celebrate their decades-old farming community. "I come back every year to see old friends," Baumann says. "We are all farmers. We're older than rocks." Baumann will be 85 in two weeks.

Inside Fermilab's Kuhn Barn, one of several barns still in use, visitors were treated to a spread of treats, including a farm-scene cake complete with a barn and rows of crops. Fermilab's Bob Lootens, who used to live on one of the farms, drove a group of about 10 partygoers around the lab. "I'm going to take you down memory lane," he said as the bus turned onto Holter Road inside the Tevatron's main ring.

Prairie burns have thinned out the forest, making it look as it did in the past; even the same gravel roads are there. "It's like a time capsule," Lootens says.

For the farming community, the Farmers' Picnic is a chance to reconnect with those who used to live here. Baumann looks up his friends every once in a while, and depended on them when he had open heart surgery. "They were there to support me," he said.

Flanked by relatives, Baumann pointed out people he knew from the pre-Fermilab days, including a 96-year-old woman for whom he had baled hay when he was younger. A former babysitter, Janet L. Mish, also remembered life in the rural community. "I babysat for a lot of the people who lived on these farms. I miss these people," she said.

Some from the farming community can recognize patches of grass where their barns once sat. Baumann's barn is still standing, although it is showing signs of its nearly 100 years and may have to be torn down for reasons of safety.

Kate Raiford