The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
To one farmer, every day was Earth Day
On June 23, 1996 smoke from the fire-ravaged barn hung in the air at Field View Farm along Route 34 in Orange. Walter Hine’s 50 dairy cows were suddenly homeless. The kind heart of Rudy Hudak saved the suffering cows as he and neighboring farmers began transporting the animals to his farm in Shelton’s White Hills where he had recently sold his milking herd to focus on field crops and raising young stock. The Field View herd would be comfortable in their “cow motel” until the Hine family could improvise a temporary barn. After nine months the cows returned to Orange, Rudy’s generosity helped to save America’s oldest dairy farm which has been run by the Hine family for 11 generations.
This impressive act of kindness to the Hine family and their cows defines the life of Rudy Hudak. c his good-natured personality and contagious smile were legendary. His passing Dec.16 at 84 marks the end of a life rich in compassion as a farmer, steward of the land, and mentor of young farmers. As we say in New England, Rudolph John Hudak “left the wood pile a little higher than he found it!”
Rudy was born Oct. 7, 1936 and grew up on the farm learning the ways of nature, cattle, crops, and people from his parents John and Mary Hudak and his mentor Raymond Shelton. He was among the last children in our community to attend the one-room schoolhouse in White Hills. In 1958, Rudy graduated from UConn’s College of Agriculture and returned to manage his beloved farm.
As a young farmer he mastered the science and art of working with dairy cows and nature to create the miracle of milk, which Rudy and his family sold directly, both raw and pasteurized to customers coming in person to the farm. His mother, Mary, helped with direct sales in the farm barn, while his father, John, drove the “Blue Goose” (a 1969 International 1,600 milk truck) on a route throughout downtown Shelton. Many local residents have fond memories of the glass bottles and great tasting milk.
To Rudy Hudak every day was Earth Day. He loved caring for his 250 acres of fields and pastures rolling southward from the hilltop with a stunning view of Long Island Sound and Bridgeport harbor. He cared for the ancient sugar maples lining the stonewalls along Birdseye Road, clipping the brush each year to enhance the beauty of the scenic road.
His friend, Guila Hawley, beloved Huntington Center farmer and community leader, engaged Rudy to steward her hayfields. She was inspired to help create the Shelton Land Conservation Trust. Guila bequeathed her fields to the trust and they became the core of the Land Trust’s now almost 400 acres.
Rudy continued to farm and care for these fields, embracing the strategic challenge of maneuvering tractors and farm equipment through the traffic of Huntington Center. Yet, last week as Fred Monahan traveled by tractor with fertilizer spreader, many drivers paused to wave and cheer him on. Perhaps the pandemic has inspired our society to a greater appreciation of Earth Day and farmers.
Kindness and talent led Rudy Hudak to help younger farmers, such as Andy DeWolfe of Sandy Hook and Fred and Stacia Monahan of Stone Gardens. Stacia was named Connecticut’s 2014 Outstanding Young Farmer. Rudy was proud!
Hudak understood tractor engines and equipment, and could coax them to last a long useful life. He’d advise his mentees, “nothing wrong with old equipment — easy to work on and hard to break!” Not a bad lesson in our disposable economy.
Most years Connecticut’s climate favors the growth of quality grass pastures and hay. Rudy Hudak mastered their culture, particularly hay. He mentored young farmers with the advice, “for best milk production hay should be harvested at peak nutrition and dried for successful storage ... test your soils, you are wasting your money on fertilizer if you don’t know what you need ... don’t cut hay under a scalloped sky.”
Rudy found love and inspiration from his two grandchildren living next door on the farm. Bob is enthusiastic and skilled at learning to operate the farm equipment; while Jenna, the apple of his eye, is a talented athlete.
She also can stack hay faster and straighter than many of the boys on her team.
The year 2020 was hard for Rudy. For more than 75 years he had mowed his hayfields; now he was increasingly confined to his farmhouse under the loving care of his daughter, Karen. One day he begged her to help him onto his beloved “International 856” for a final round of hay tedding. But his body after 84 years of strains from farming no longer packed the legendary horsepower of his younger years. Perhaps father and daughter both knew this was the final lap. Karen’s husband, Bob McGuire, and the Monahans now did the haying. By fall, Bob declared the old hay rake was worn out as he parked it for the last time along an old stonewall. Rudy, his future uncertain, was unwilling to buy a new one.
It is April now, with spring in the air. The other day, Bob McGuire pulled into his farmyard with a brand-new hay rake. The next generation will carry on.
I am thinking of Rudy this week of Earth Day. We shared a passion for spring, our favorite season. I look at his fields a mile across the valley from our farm’s hilltop and I am grateful for my life-time neighbor. I am joyful his family and friends will carry on.
Terry Jones is a fifth-generation Shelton farmer and grandfather. He serves as vice president of the Board of Control at the CT Agricultural Experiment Station, and board member at CT Working Lands Alliance, the Valley Community Foundation, and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.