Written by David Johnson
Photographed by Jerry Monkman and David Johnson
When Norma met John, she knew he was the man for her. The two crossed paths in downtown Exeter amidst a shared group of friends. Though young, Norma knew precisely what kind of man she was looking for - and looking to avoid. Loyalty, commitment, hard work, decency, temperance: these were the characteristics she demanded in a counterpart. They were married in 1955.
“I’ll tell you,” Norma says, “I’ve never met a person as good as he was.”
The breeze rolls smoothly off the recently hayed fields of the 28-acre Fuller property, on Pickpocket Road in Brentwood. Invisible tendrils of refreshing cool air - so appreciated during this recent July hot spell - snake through the property, finding their way to a front porch, lightly battering the screen door against the entrance jamb.
It’s a snapshot of Americana: a lazy summer day, a modest farmhouse, a field splayed out to a horizon of sturdy oak trees, various antique farm equipment sitting dormant in their outbuildings.
Through the screen door, into the living room, sits Norma Fuller. She is in her 80s, but is whip-smart and friendly, eager to talk about the story of her property and what it represents: the culmination of hard work, considered land management, decades-spanning house-hopping, and 64 years of marriage.
This land is laced with more than just memory and history; it is a hub of coastal watershed protection, mature hardwood forests, diverse wildlife habitat, and farm-ready soils, all of which abuts conserved parcels.
But that’s not what John and Norma were thinking when they first moved. For the young couple (at the time), it was all about finding a place to build a future. Their quest took them on an intra-Brentwood hopscotch to different locations, until they finally landed at their Pickpocket destination. At that time, it was far from the postcard-like canvas it would eventually become, but there was potential.
It just needed some good, old-fashioned hard work. And John and Norma were up to the challenge. The two would often be found in the woods, with John operating one of his many pieces of power equipment (his passion was collecting, tinkering, and operating a variety of vintage farm tractors) and Norma was on brush-burning duty.
“I helped him all the way,” she says, pointing out the door. “This field was not a field. It was all woods right there. He would cut the trees, and I would gather the brush and tend the fire.”
Eventually, painstakingly, the once-wild land transformed into a mosaic of field and forest, and the Fullers realized the potential they had envisioned so many years ago.
They had found their home.
Potential. That’s what made John and Norma’s property so attractive to SELT and the Town of Brentwood’s Conservation Commission, a key partner providing the majority of funds to purchase the easement.
As it stands now, a bounty of natural resources lies within these 28 acres: prime wetlands, aquifer and drinking water supply protection, threatened flora and fauna habitat, and connectivity to additional conserved, unfragmented land.
But just as when Norma and John first set eyes on the wooded lot so many decades ago, there is even greater value just beneath the surface. And that is literally true in this case: the potential can be found in the dirt. The rich farmland soils, combined with the rolling open space, tees up the property to be a prime working farm one day.
Recognizing this, SELT has pursued an OPAV (Option to Purchase at Agriculture Value), a unique variation of conservation easement that provides the best chance for the land to be purchased by
a farmer.
The Fuller land sits within a network of other farms, making it more likely to survive as an agricultural enterprise in the future due to the mini-ecosystem of services that are more likely to be available to future farmers.
“Protecting farmland for the future is one of our key conservation goals,” said Ben Engel, Conservation Project Manager for SELT. “The real estate market can provide an insurmountable barrier to farmers looking to own land, so the OPAV is something we can use to make a property like the Fullers’ far more accessible. Thanks to Norma and John’s careful management of their land, it is a prime candidate for a future working farm, something, unfortunately, we are seeing fewer and fewer of in our communities.”
There is a sweet harmony here: one day, perhaps, farmers on a quest for their own property may find themselves working the soil on the land John and Norma built a life upon, the ultimate destination of their shared adventure that began over half-a-century ago.
John Fuller passed away five years ago.
“I’ve been dealing with it ever since,” Norma says, her voice trailing off for a moment. “I can’t stand it.”
The phone rings. It’s the plumber. Norma quickly pivots to business mode, negotiating a needed visit to address a water issue in the house. Whatever the future may hold for the Fuller homestead (perhaps farmstead someday), there is still work to do today. To offset some of the costs required to maintain the property, Norma has undertaken a new task - one that she has been dreading. She is selling John’s farm equipment.
“It broke my heart because he never wanted to part with any of his equipment even after he got older,” she says. “He just loved it.”
But she also knows John would have wanted her to do it. Would have expected her to do it. Whatever was needed to protect the land they had worked so hard to transform into a home. Now permanent protection is the threshold, forever enshrining a lifetime of memory sewn into its soils.
Norma gestures to an empty chair, in the corner of the living room, just a few feet from her: “That is where he always used to sit,” she says, quietly.
On this magnificent land, there is no open space more precious to her.
