Three roosters at the Evergreen Park Urban Barn are famous for greeting visitors with loud crowing, one trying to outdo the other in cock-a-doodle-doos.
“They’re doing it because they want you to look at them and say how beautiful they are,” said Mary Kay Nielsen, barn manager. “These are my boys.”
The chickens are just one of many attractions at the barn, which sits on the 50-acre James J. Sexton Park between Rockwell and California Avenues and 91st and 93rd streets. The many hens are separated from the roosters to avoid skirmishes and there are two goats and three horses.
There are also two barn cats who roam the grounds and reside in a comfy office complete with easy chair and blanket for sleeping, and plenty of toys.
On a recent morning, the University of Illinois master gardeners finished up a pollinator garden and last year made a small herb and green garden, both funded through grants. Nielsen gives students who visit herbs from the garden, as well as fresh eggs from the chickens.
There’s also a vegetable garden with squash, tomatoes, peppers and watermelon, tended by Jim Nowicki, a public works employee, and another space for bee hives. Visitors old and young can stroll by a pond or play Frisbee golf on a course.
Nielsen, a former language arts teacher and elementary school librarian, brought the chickens with her from her previous job.
“I saw how much kids were attracted to the chickens in the library and how calm it made them,” said Nielsen.
But she’s also developed a special relationship with the animals, including the mini-horse, Ariel, who is 19.
“She’s like a 50-year-old woman,” said Nielsen. “She’s my spicy girl. … if someone’s grooming her, she’ll try to kick them.”
She sometimes reminds Let’s Talk Turkey, or Turk for short, a former harness racing horse and then broodmare weighing roughly 1,300 pounds, that she needs to stand up to her horse pal, Willie, who lived with a family.
“We all get along here,” Nielsen said.
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The barn hosts regular classes for AERO, the special education cooperative for students ages 14-22. They do work-study there, too, learning about the animals and gardens, as well as developing skills cutting apples and carrots for the horses, feeding animals, moving hay and helping with planting.
Seniors with special needs from the Southwest Special Recreation Association in Alsip and one in Mount Greenwood come to learn and enjoy.
“They’re so much fun, so kind and so energetic,” said Nielsen. “Those are the things that lift you up.”
Nielsen suggests visitors come between 4:15 and 4:30 p.m., when she brings the menagerie back into the barn and people can be closer to them. Visitors can also watch cleaning and grooming between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m., when the horses get their hoofs “picked” or cleaned.
Ally Winn, who was in AERO but aged out, still comes for an hour weekly, helping to walk Ariel, feed the goats and tend to a garden. Her favorites are the chickens.
Lisa Winn, of Burbank, her mom, accompanies her.
“It’s a very friendly place,” Lisa Winn said.
Alec Filosa said he has loved the barn for a while but developed an autoimmune disease, which weakened his muscles. A former manager told him to come back to volunteer when he felt better. He now helps sweep up, clean waste and groom the goats to remove burrs, which has helped him rebuild muscle.
“They’re my demons,” said Filosa of the goats. “You should see them in the spring, they’ll jump up and ram you.”
His mother, Mary Ellen, who lives with him in Beverly, also visits.
“I just come and enjoy the farm,” she said. “It’s a good way for people to be together.
“You’d be surprised how many kids haven’t seen goats or chickens.”
Nielsen tries to educate both children and adults about the animals and environment.
She said visitors are surprised when she says the goats are considered “meat goats,” though they are safe at the barn.
“We are all so removed from our food that people don’t know where it comes from,” said Nielsen, who also explains the habits of the different creatures and attributes of the food grown there. “People could be doing so much more growing.”
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.