By Laurie Aubuchon

“That’s where the milk comes out,” says a boy looking at a cow at Hidden Villa. “It’s called a gutter.”

In the Bay Area, where many of us are disconnected from the source of our food and the joy of being in nature, folks at Hidden Villa have been making a difference through the Los Altos Hills preserve’s Environmental Education Program.

“The goal of the program is to reconnect children to their natural world and their food,” said Chris Overington, director of the program.

And since 1970, volunteers and staff have done just that by leading schoolchildren around Hidden Villa’s farm and wilderness preserve.

While some volunteers guide for only a short time, many stay for years. They are of various ages and backgrounds, but what the volunteers have in common is a love of children, especially the things children say.

While walking past a pungent field of just-harvested leeks, a guide leading first-graders said, “Smell those leeks? They’re like onions.”

“I eat ogres,” replied one of the boys.

“What’s an ogre?” asked the guide.

“They’re like, um, onions.”

After a 4-year-old observed a freshly sheared sheep, she said, “Look! It’s been peeled!”

A boy in the garden was seen with his hands full of all the garden signs that name the plants. When asked what he was doing, he said, “I’m collecting words.”

After a guide showed how leaves break down and make dirt, one little girl lit up with glee and said, “The whole world is a compost pile.”

Reacting to goat droppings, a child said, “Oh look! A gumball machine.”

“That’s where the milk comes out,” announced a boy looking at a cow. “It’s called a gutter.”

When a boy asked where the farmer was, the guide said, “I don’t know. I’ll let you know if we see her.”

“It’s a she?!” he loudly replied, his eyes wide with disbelief.

“Yup,” said the guide.

Some of the most wonderful reactions also come from children who’ve never been in the woods before.

As a group of second-graders from Brisbane entered the forest after visiting the farm, a girl said, “Wow, it must have really taken someone a long time to plant all this.” The volunteer guide, Maryanne Schonfisch, explained how plants grow on their own in the woods.

Farther down the trail, a deer appeared and the girl asked, “Who let the deer out?”

“Are you thinking about the ‘deer fence’ sign on the (vegetable) garden gate?” asked the guide. “The fence keeps the deer out, not in.”

“Who feeds them?” asked the girl.

The guide explained how the deer eat plants in the woods.

According to volunteer Schonfisch, it’s an honor to be a part of children’s first experiences with nature and a farm.

“We help to shape how they feel about it for the rest of their lives,” Schonfisch said.

To become a volunteer guide at Hidden Villa, call Garth Harwood at 949-8643 or log on to www.hiddenvilla.org.