Ridgefield, like so many towns in Connecticut, was once a predominantly agrarian community. Over the past century, however, acre after acre of farmland has been developed to accommodate its growing population.
According to research compiled by Phil Esser in Agrarian Presence in the Country Place Era, Ridgefield boasted several thousand acres of farmland as recently as one hundred years ago. Today, only two working farms remain: The Hickories and Henny Penny Farm.
Remarkably, both farms are owned and operated by women—Dina Brewster at The Hickories and Whitney Freeman at Henny Penny Farm. Both farms are committed to supplying the most nutrient-dense foods to our town using sustainable methods and regenerative agriculture.
“I’ve been fortunate because one of my greatest fears in becoming a farmer was that women don’t do this,” Dina tells us. We are sitting on antique chairs in the lofted area of a barn built in 1870, with hours-old lambs bleating beneath us. “I worried I would feel isolated and wasn’t sure I’d fit into Ridgefield because the town had changed so much.”
Dina is a third generation farmer, stewarding land that has been growing food for Ridgefield since 1764. Her grandparents, Carroll and Blandina Brewster, bought The Hickories in 1936. Located on Lounsbury Road in Farmingville, the property was previously owned by the Lounsbury family dating back to 1837.
“The land had been fragmented over time, and my grandparents spent most of their lives after the Depression putting the farm back together,” Dina tells us. “Then my dad has spent most of his life trying to protect the land, which he succeeded in doing in the 1990s. Ridgefield has some of the most forward-thinking land conservation programs in the state.”
After graduate school, Dina joined the Peace Corps and traveled to the Philippines.
“I was stationed right below the Del Monte pineapple plantation,” she recalls. “That’s when I found religion in organic farming. I came back knowing I wanted to pursue organics.”
Leaving her position as a high school teacher in New York City, Dina began working at The Hickories in earnest in 2004. The following year, she took over management when Otto Gravesen, the farm manager, passed away unexpectedly. Determined to honor the farm’s legacy while improving its ecological impact, Dina worked tirelessly during the first three years of her tenure to bring The Hickories to USDA-certified organic status.
“It was a huge challenge but extremely important,” she says. “If I was going to manage the farm, I wanted to make it a bigger sponge for biodiversity.”
With a dedicated team—including Jaclyn (Jaci) Slattery, Justin Hawrysh, Brendan Clyons, Sarah Zitnay, and a crew of part-time employees—Dina has transformed The Hickories over the last 20 years from a modest one-acre vegetable farm to a thriving 45-acre operation offering much more than produce.
Jaci took over as farm manager eight years ago. Growing up on Cape Cod, she tells us that her family always had a big garden—but there wasn’t an opportunity to buy organic food out of season, which was important to her. When she turned 18, Jaci moved to California and worked on a certified organic startup farm. After attending school for sustainable agriculture, she’s been farming ever since.
“I wanted to work at The Hickories because it was woman-owned, and I thought that was really important,” Jaci tells us. “For the camaraderie—but also for a deeper understanding. Dina and I share the same ethos. We’re on the same page about a lot of things without even having a conversation.”
By contrast, Whitney Freeman, founder of Henny Penny Farm, followed a more circuitous path to farming. Originally from Bergen County, New Jersey, she earned her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Imperial College of Science. Afterward, she went on to receive her doctorate in Huntington’s disease research at the University of Cambridge.
After her studies she returned to New Jersey before eventually landing in Ridgefield where her daughter, Penny, was born in 2008.
“Peggy Marconi was our real estate agent, and I told her I wanted an open property with no ledge and no forest,” Whitney tells us, laughing—because finding such a perfect parcel of land in Ridgefield is no small feat.
When Nehemiah Keeler’s property, built in 1725, became available, Whitney knew she’d found her unicorn. But transitioning from studying a neurodegenerative disease to farming was not the astonishing about-face it might seem.
Whitney explains, “I lived in a cottage outside of Cambridge and fell in love with horticulture.” We are having tea in a sitting room overlooking a sheep pasture—something else she fell in love with during her time in the English countryside. “My personal passion was sustainability. But I liked the art of it too.”
At first, she envisioned constructing gardens on the property, having run a small garden design company in New Jersey for four years upon her return to the States. Slowly, her plans evolved.
“It’s all wetlands in the back, which is a very sensitive environment,” she tells us. “It was filled with invasive plants—privet, multiflora rose, phragmites. So I decided to get some goats to eat the plants. They were the first step in using animals to sustain the land.”
Whitney added chickens so the family could have fresh eggs. And then, of course, sheep.
“I had always wanted sheep. I’ve had a passion for knitting and fibers since I was four or five. No one else had them for me to look at, so I had to get my own!”
Penny, now a very poised and articulate 16-year-old, has become especially passionate about sheep showing. She attended her first show when she was 7 and joined the Litchfield County 4-H club at age 8. Today, she serves as President of her chapter and has even recruited several Ridgefield kids to join.
“It’s so great to see kids getting into agriculture,” Penny says. “That’s what I love most—getting kids involved, especially those who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunities I’ve been lucky enough to have.”
Penny has her own flock of show sheep, and, a budding scientist herself, has become very interested in training club lambs. Working with a mentor in the field, she tells us how fascinated she is by fine-tuning ratios of their food—protein versus fat, figuring out how much exercise they need to build additional muscle mass, which supplements would be beneficial for specific needs.
“We’re not going to win major shows with the club lambs,” she tells us. “It’s more of a hobby. But I’ve been able to apply the knowledge I’ve learned with the club lambs to the wool sheep, which is really interesting.”
All of Penny’s hard work has paid off. At the North American International Livestock Expo in Louisville last November, she took home Best Fleece for both her white Romney sheep and black Romney sheep. And she is already looking forward to returning to Kentucky later this year.
Each of these women has been shaped by the wisdom of those who came before them. Penny credits many in the sheep-showing community for their invaluable guidance and support. Both Dina and Jaci tell us how they were mentored by Annie Farrell, the former farm manager at Millstone Farm in Wilton. And Whitney shares a similar experience.
“The way I learned so quickly is from every story any farmer ever told me about something that went wrong: I internalized it. Don’t make that mistake. It saved years,” she tells us.
Although Whitney initially envisioned Henny Penny as a teaching farm, it became clear over time that it could not sustain itself that way. Instead, the farm shifted toward a more livestock-centered focus after a friend gave Whitney The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
“That was the pivotal moment in deciding to really farm,” Whitney tells us. “After I read it, I thought: How can I ever eat chicken again if I don't raise it myself? So I decided to start raising poultry.”
Whitney explains that the chickens she raises at Henny Penny taste different because they are an active breed—not one genetically selected to sit and grow unnaturally large. Today, the farm has expanded to a team of full-time and part-time employees. Frank is the farm manager.
In exciting news, Henny Penny is scaling up its operations with the recent purchase of 115 acres of farmland 30 minutes north of Ridgefield. “We can’t wait to see how our adaptive grazing techniques will breathe new life into fallow fields, abandoned orchards, and a surrounding forest,” Whitney tells us.
Henny Penny offers pasture-raised lamb, pork, chicken, and turkey. Customers can choose from various cuts, whole birds, and an assortment of sausages—including Merguez and Sweet Italian—not to mention bacon.
Their selection of handcrafted goods includes 15 varieties of goat milk soaps, ranging from exfoliating bars, to creamy lavender, to an adorable three-dimensional pig-shaped soap. Beautifully packaged, 100% soy candles are also available. Everything is made on the farm.
And then there’s the wool—colorful Dorset baby blankets, handwoven Berber rugs made from Romney wool, cozy, hats, and hand-dyed yarn in a variety of weights.
Both Henny Penny and The Hickories use Still River Mill, a textile mill in Eastford, Connecticut, to process their wool.
The Hickories’ flock consists primarily of Finnish and cross-breed ewes, producing wool for handwoven hats, gloves, shawls, and scarves. Their laying hens provide pasture-raised eggs year-round, while lambs and pigs are raised in certified organic pastures, with various cuts of meat available in the farm store throughout the year. The farm stand also stocks jars of salsa, marinara, and other shelf-stable goods.
Beyond food and fiber, the farm is deeply committed to closing loops of sustainability and stewarding the land they have been entrusted with. Justin founded a vermicompost company, Wiggle Room, and Dina has spearheaded a seed restoration initiative, The Northeast Seed Collective, working to conserve and reintroduce native plants to the area.
And then, of course, there is The Hickories’ produce—over 150 varieties of organic fruits and vegetables, from radishes and carrots in the spring, to tomatoes and blueberries in the summer, to kale and potatoes in the fall. The farm also sells beautiful flowers, from tulips to dahlias. Everything cultivated at The Hickories is USDA-certified organic.
Both Henny Penny and The Hickories participate in community-supported agriculture (CSA), a model which invites people to invest in the farm’s harvest, reinforcing the partnership between farmer and consumer. Henny Penny offers a whole chicken CSA, while The Hickories offers vegetable, flower, and egg CSAs.
From composting to cover cropping, these remarkable women aren’t just tending the land—they’re rebuilding it. Through their commitment to regenerative agriculture, they’re restoring soil biodiversity and strengthening resilience against extreme weather. Dina and Jaci at The Hickories and Whitney and Penny at Henny Penny are not only thriving in agriculture, but leading the way.
With their eyes on the future, each of these women is exemplifying how farming is more than a livelihood; it’s a legacy—a promise to the land, to their families, and to our community. Ridgefield isn’t just home to two working farms—it’s home to a new generation of farmers, cultivating a more sustainable future for us all.
Both farms have stores located on their property. Henny Penny is located at 673 Ridgebury Road and their farm store is open year-round each Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Hickories is located at 136 Lounsbury Road and their farm store is open year-round, Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
From June 21 until October 5, you can find both Henny Penny and The Hickories at the Ridgefield Farmers Market every Saturday from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.
Visit thehickories.org and hennypennyfarm2015.com to learn more, and follow along to see farm goings-on at @thehickories and @hennypennyfarm2015.
One of my greatest fears in becoming a farmer was that women don’t do this. (Dina Brewster)
We can’t wait to see how our adaptive grazing techniques will breathe new life into fallow fields. (Whitney Freeman)