Aullwood hours
9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m., Sunday.
Cost: $2 children 2-18; $4 adults. Friends of Aullwood and National Audubon Society, free.
Upcoming events:
Native Plant Sale: Saturday, April 17, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. (pre-orders can pick up the day before), celebrating 40th anniversary of Earth Day. More than 60 species of plants for sale, $3.50 per plant (all perennials), $14-35 for shrubs and small trees.
Aullwood Fundraiser Days at Christy's Pizza of Vandalia (across from Butler High School): Wednesday, April 21
Birdathon: May 5, pledges for bird spotting.
Farm Babies Fest: May 15, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; admission, $5 car.
BUTLER TWP. — John Stedman grew up on a farm, was a Navy diver and worked for General Motors for 30 years, nearly a perfect background to be farm director at Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm, the nature preserve across U.S. 40 from Englewood Dam.
The farm is part of 200 acres of land — nearly half of it a nature preserve — donated to the national Audubon Society in 1957 by Mrs. Marie Aull. She was the widow of John Aull, a native Daytonian who made his fortune in downtown Dayton with the Aull Brothers Paper and Box Co., which developed the first foldable cardboard boxes.
Because the preserve and farm receive no tax dollars, they rely on donations and small entrance fees to sustain the land and hold classes in nature.
“This is the flagship for the Audubon Society,” said Ardith Hamilton, Aullwood’s development and marketing coordinator. “We have hands-on classrooms for students and nature trails and even a trail that is paved and wheelchair accessible.”
Hamilton said also the center is rentable for weddings, meetings and other types of receptions. Last year, there were 110,000 visitors.
Marie Aull was encouraged to make her donation before she died — and she lived a long life, to 105, when she passed away in 2002 — and she continued to live in her home on the property. That home is still up, but vacant.
Stedman, however, lives on the farm, taking care of the 17 cows, 14 ewes, 10 lambs, eight pigs, five goats, two kids, a couple of horses, three turkeys and “about 70 layer chickens.”
“Everything we raise, we sell,” Stedman said. “Before Thanksgiving, we raise about 150 turkeys. We take them and dress them and sell out. We never have to freeze anything.”
Stedman tills also about 52 acres, mostly with sorghum/Sudan and wheat. A new education building will take the place of an older building within the next two years. Stedman and Hamilton said visitors come at all times of the year. The classrooms on the nature side are large and surrounded in picture windows. In the fall, classes are held in candle dipping. In the spring, the farm side makes maple syrup.
“A lot of times, they’ll have programs at the nature center, and they walk up the paths and come up here (to the farm),” Stedman said.
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