Tifft Nature Preserve

Safe Haven

 

When we held our planning meeting last February someone suggested that we paint at Tifft Farm. Of course I had heard about it over the years —brown field turned nature preserve. Sounded rather, well –uninviting.

On a cool July morning, I pulled into the gravely parking area at Tifft Nature Preserve. Draping my painting gear over my shoulder, I followed a gritty dirt road that paralleled a large  pond half filled in with cattails.  Strewn along its shore were huge ice-age boulders on which several fishermen hunkered  hopefully over  fishing lines that hung limp in the still water. The roar of construction on Fuhrmann Blvd grew distant and the relief of solitude swept over me as I walked along.

Famous for being the first nature preserve in the country to emerge from a brown field, Tifft Farm started out as a dairy farm in the early eighteen hundreds. (Reportedly, customers favored milk from Tifft Farm because less water was added to it!)  However, because of its proximity to Buffalo and Lake Erie, it was inevitable that industry would cast a longing eye towards its sandy shores. By the 1970’s, Tifft Farm hadn’t been a farm in well over a century, and the property had degenerated into a general dumping ground where smokey fires frequently burned. When city officials announced plans to spread  two million pounds of solid waste over the entire property, a group of local folks came up with the unprecedented inspiration to turn this  wasteland into a nature preserve.  Knowing the area was critical to migratory birds, and with a couple of strong voices leading the way, they gathered enough political muster to begin a tentative dialogue with city officials; eventually compromises  were reached, and the long process of restoring the land began. That was 40 years ago.

I decided to paint a field filled with clusters of bright yellow blossoms. It sloped up a hill dotted with clumps of trees that rustled in the faint breeze. As if on cue, a group of energetic eight-year olds surrounded me as soon as I set up my easel. So much for solitude! Obviously part of a nature study group, I enjoyed listening to their lively banter while their teacher cajoled them into making some sort of leafy head band. Nearby two young people intently studied what appeared to be a clump of weeds.  I could hear their animated voices earnestly trying to discern the exact species of a particular wild flower, using actual botanical Latin names. I was impressed. I thought the Latin names only appeared in garden catalogues.

I came to the preserve  that day to paint with friends, and in the process came away with renewed appreciation of the regenerative power of nature. At the time I had no idea that beneath the brightly flowered field lie all the dangers of buried toxic waste.  I applaud that little band of folks who had the foresight to recognize the ecological importance of Tifft Farm, and because they possessed the grace and vision to pay it forward, the legacy of the preserve lives on.