On a brisk December afternoon, a small group of local men, women and children broke branches, raked leaves, played with goats and learned a bit about the carbon cycle.

From 1:30 to 3 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 8, LexFarm and its two goat yard farmers, Ben Schlosser and Sofia McDonald Games, invited volunteers to stop a piece of private property adjacent to Busa Farms and help process oak and promote carbon holding in the goat yard, which should decrease carbon exhale and improve the soil.

“Our goal is to produce food organically, and I say organically meaning without the uses of extensive amounts of fossil fuels and pesticides,” said Schlosser. “And what we’re doing today is trying to develop topsoil, which will in turn allow us to hold the goat manure and the goat manure, in turn, will help us grow a small amount of food inside the yard for the goats to eat. Without green, nitrogen-dense vegetable matter, goats can’t make milk and can’t have kids and live their lives.”

An added bonus to being able to hold the goat manure is that it prevents the poop from running down the hills and polluting the reservoir, Schlosser added.

So, for a few hours, the volunteers and LexFarm members broke down and stacked branches to be chipped, wheeled barrows of twigs and leaves to be mixed in with the soil and hung branches over the fence for the goats to munch. 

It was the first of what could be many LexFarm Goat Yard Projects, at the goat yard, located on a piece of private property adjacent to Busa Farms, a piece of town-owned farmland with an uncertain future. 

Supporters of LexFarm believe these kind of experiences are valuable for children and adults and could display the viability of having a community farm on the Busa Land, which has been farmed for 350 years. Meanwhile, the Board of Selectmen have asked LexHAB to deliver a proposal to site some units of affordable housing along lower Lowell Street on the "Arlington side" of the property.