Much has been written about Quechee’s Whitman Brook, a lovingly restored orchard offering 143 varieties of heirloom apples originating in Europe and the United States. Now an award-winning documentary has been added to the orchard’s accolades. Whitman Brook and the Nature of Time by Norwich Writer/Director Ben Silberfarb beautifully captures the distinct seasons in the orchard and the moving story of its thoughtful founder and lead steward Terry Dorman and the people who work with him taking care of the land.

The poet Alexander Pope wrote a commonly used phrase in landscape and agricultural circles, ‘Consult the genius of a place in all.’ It’s clear from watching the film that the genius of Whitman Brook is the care and attention given to honoring the pace of nature in the orchard and the surrounding property of more than 200 acres. Appreciation for the natural world is evident throughout the property, and reaches back to Terry’s childhood experiences growing up on a former Massachusetts farm that had been in his family since the Revolutionary war. In the film, he shares his viewpoint. “I see the same tree about the same time every year to prune it. I can see the rhythm  of the seasons. It’s an experience I wouldn’t get without being connected to the ground or nature in that way.”

Whitman Brook and the Nature of Time embodies the concept of ‘the genius of a place’, telling a multi-layered story about rescuing a 100 year-old apple orchard tree by tree, the artful skills of pruning and grafting, and honoring the memory of Terry’s late wife Sara, who passed away from cancer in 2017. “Ben deserves virtually all of the credit for saying we had the potential to create a meaningful documentary,” says Terry. “What I set out to do was capture that we were doing something here more important than many people realize. My initial motivation was to have something for the archives after 26 years of caring for the land.”

When Ben began working on the project with Terry, he realized there was a deeper story to be told about the connection Terry and Sara originally had with the land and their decision to restore the orchard and surrounding property with a focus on conservation. “Terry filled the roles of both subject and producer, so I looked at it from a storytelling point of view. My primary role was to pull out the stories and unify them and Terry played a significant role in that.” The film took a bit less than 2 years to complete, and Ben shot a substantial amount of footage – 30 terabytes – which took thousands of hours to edit into the final version of the film. “I’ve made many films, but this was a unique situation. A good film should be easy to watch and have layers of different ideas that are unified into one story.”

A key contributor to the story of Whitman Brook is Addie Gardner, an eighth-generation Vermonter who came to work at the orchard after coordinating the vegetable farm and greenhouses at Killdeer Farm for 16 years. Addie brought her grafting skills and art training to the orchard as well as to the ornamental and vegetable gardens at Whitman Brook, and now prunes and grafts alongside Terry in the orchard throughout the season. She also has a hand in curating the extensive resource library at Whitman Brook, researching and selecting titles to add. “I think nature has always influenced my art, but it’s hard to replicate something that’s already beautiful. The idea of a well-pruned apple tree as a sculpture is pleasing for the eye and also pleasing for the plant.” The practice of grafting is thousands of years old, and seems to have emerged around the world at approximately the same time according to Addie.

Addie’s contribution to the film also highlights the meditative aspects of working at the orchard, and emphasizes the theme of taking one’s time and slowing down. “I like all the things that your mind conjures up when you think about time and where you are even in the last few hundred years, and the film’s restoration theme of putting effort into old things that work well and keeping things that should not be disposed of.”

Addie, Ben, and Terry all credit the time spent getting to know one another over meals as a vital component in the high quality nature of the film. “The time we spent getting to know each other was important. I don’t know if I would have expressed myself in the film the same way if we hadn’t had that,” says Addie.

Addie was pleased to discover values shared in common with Terry and Ben during the collaborative writing and filmmaking process – stewardship of the land, care for the environment, slowing down, appreciating the little things, seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. “When I teach somebody how to prune or work on the property, I tell them ‘Just do it right’. We have to figure out how to do it right before we do it fast.”

Terry credits his parents, but in particular his mother, a writer for the Boston Globe who recently passed away at age 101, for his determination and drive. “My mother was my hero. It’s not that I didn’t have a great relationship with my father, but my mother and I understood each other. I like doing the best I can, and her endless curiosity and drive rubbed off.” Terry’s ‘day job’ is assisting companies that are struggling. “A big part of my job is persuading various constituencies involved with companies we work with to be patient. The things that I say in the film about moving slowly and intentionally I believe.”

In the orchard’s 1920’s block, originally Macintosh trees, now features grafted heirloom varieties that are popular with customers in the fall harvest season. Names like Newtown Pippin, Cox’s Orange Pippin, and Karmijn de Sonnaville sell out quickly. And of course, there’s the Oliver apple in honor of Terry and Sara’s dog by the same name. “Our changing of the varieties was to have a viable business. If we had a tree that we had too many of, it was pretty straightforward to graft a new variety that we wanted more of.” And like wine, the same apple variety can have a different taste depending on the ‘terroir’, the environmental conditions like soil, topography, and climate in which the fruit is grown.

The process of making the film was a collaborative one, and Ben points to having the unusual gift of quality time to develop the story and craft the film. “Films work on many different levels –sound, aesthetics, story – and you aren’t often given the time to create something that people can absorb and respond to on many levels, which is the goal.” It took time to evolve the story to include both the technical aspects of how the orchard works as well as the human and emotional sides to the story like the film’s tribute to Sara, how to make the delicious Hewes apple sauce (‘no sugar or spices, just the apples’), and the parallels and contrasts between Terry’s day job and working in the orchard. “To really get at the best story, people need to let go of me hanging around with a camera. And that mixed well with Terrys’ style as the producer – he moves slowly, builds trust, and is cautious.” Ben notes that filmmakers are often forced into something that hasn’t been given much thought and likes to say, “On any hiking trip the best view is just a little further down the road, often further than most people are willing to go.” The film has a scene with Addie slowly counting back the rings of a tree that will be grafted to the year of her birth and beyond to illustrate the importance of taking the time to reflect on what came before us. “To keep the old varieties of apples around, it helps us understand ourselves better and our past better. They’re the fruit that our ancestors were eating,” says Addie. “Gnarled old trunks of trees that were there before you and will be there after you.”

The long-term vision for Whitman Brook is to create a public space with historic architecture projects, a conservatory, agriculture, culinary arts, fluvial systems, forestry, writing, and wildlife study. Terry has been steadily working toward that goal for more than 32 years. Parts of the property that were originally slated for development are now protected as wildlife habitat, and the land is largely contiguous to support animal migration and environmental conservation goals. “I’m staying true to my philosophy of doing the best quality possible.”

For more information on Whitman Brook visit the website, www.whitmanbrook.com. To learn more about Ben Silbfarb film visit

Much has been written about Quechee’s Whitman Brook, a lovingly restored orchard offering 143 varieties of heirloom apples originating in Europe and the United States. Now an award-winning documentary has been added to the orchard’s accolades. Whitman Brook and the Nature of Time by Norwich Writer/Director Ben Silberfarb beautifully captures the distinct seasons in the orchard and the moving story of its thoughtful founder and lead steward Terry Dorman and the people who work with him taking care of the land.

The poet Alexander Pope wrote a commonly used phrase in landscape and agricultural circles, ‘Consult the genius of a place in all.’ It’s clear from watching the film that the genius of Whitman Brook is the care and attention given to honoring the pace of nature in the orchard and the surrounding property of more than 200 acres. Appreciation for the natural world is evident throughout the property, and reaches back to Terry’s childhood experiences growing up on a former Massachusetts farm that had been in his family since the Revolutionary war. In the film, he shares his viewpoint. “I see the same tree about the same time every year to prune it. I can see the rhythm  of the seasons. It’s an experience I wouldn’t get without being connected to the ground or nature in that way.”

Whitman Brook and the Nature of Time embodies the concept of ‘the genius of a place’, telling a multi-layered story about rescuing a 100 year-old apple orchard tree by tree, the artful skills of pruning and grafting, and honoring the memory of Terry’s late wife Sara, who passed away from cancer in 2017. “Ben deserves virtually all of the credit for saying we had the potential to create a meaningful documentary,” says Terry. “What I set out to do was capture that we were doing something here more important than many people realize. My initial motivation was to have something for the archives after 26 years of caring for the land.”

When Ben began working on the project with Terry, he realized there was a deeper story to be told about the connection Terry and Sara originally had with the land and their decision to restore the orchard and surrounding property with a focus on conservation. “Terry filled the roles of both subject and producer, so I looked at it from a storytelling point of view. My primary role was to pull out the stories and unify them and Terry played a significant role in that.” The film took a bit less than 2 years to complete, and Ben shot a substantial amount of footage – 30 terabytes – which took thousands of hours to edit into the final version of the film. “I’ve made many films, but this was a unique situation. A good film should be easy to watch and have layers of different ideas that are unified into one story.”

A key contributor to the story of Whitman Brook is Addie Gardner, an eighth-generation Vermonter who came to work at the orchard after coordinating the vegetable farm and greenhouses at Killdeer Farm for 16 years. Addie brought her grafting skills and art training to the orchard as well as to the ornamental and vegetable gardens at Whitman Brook, and now prunes and grafts alongside Terry in the orchard throughout the season. She also has a hand in curating the extensive resource library at Whitman Brook, researching and selecting titles to add. “I think nature has always influenced my art, but it’s hard to replicate something that’s already beautiful. The idea of a well-pruned apple tree as a sculpture is pleasing for the eye and also pleasing for the plant.” The practice of grafting is thousands of years old, and seems to have emerged around the world at approximately the same time according to Addie.

Addie’s contribution to the film also highlights the meditative aspects of working at the orchard, and emphasizes the theme of taking one’s time and slowing down. “I like all the things that your mind conjures up when you think about time and where you are even in the last few hundred years, and the film’s restoration theme of putting effort into old things that work well and keeping things that should not be disposed of.”

Addie, Ben, and Terry all credit the time spent getting to know one another over meals as a vital component in the high quality nature of the film. “The time we spent getting to know each other was important. I don’t know if I would have expressed myself in the film the same way if we hadn’t had that,” says Addie.

Addie was pleased to discover values shared in common with Terry and Ben during the collaborative writing and filmmaking process – stewardship of the land, care for the environment, slowing down, appreciating the little things, seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. “When I teach somebody how to prune or work on the property, I tell them ‘Just do it right’. We have to figure out how to do it right before we do it fast.”

Terry credits his parents, but in particular his mother, a writer for the Boston Globe who recently passed away at age 101, for his determination and drive. “My mother was my hero. It’s not that I didn’t have a great relationship with my father, but my mother and I understood each other. I like doing the best I can, and her endless curiosity and drive rubbed off.” Terry’s ‘day job’ is assisting companies that are struggling. “A big part of my job is persuading various constituencies involved with companies we work with to be patient. The things that I say in the film about moving slowly and intentionally I believe.”

In the orchard’s 1920’s block, originally Macintosh trees, now features grafted heirloom varieties that are popular with customers in the fall harvest season. Names like Newtown Pippin, Cox’s Orange Pippin, and Karmijn de Sonnaville sell out quickly. And of course, there’s the Oliver apple in honor of Terry and Sara’s dog by the same name. “Our changing of the varieties was to have a viable business. If we had a tree that we had too many of, it was pretty straightforward to graft a new variety that we wanted more of.” And like wine, the same apple variety can have a different taste depending on the ‘terroir’, the environmental conditions like soil, topography, and climate in which the fruit is grown.

The process of making the film was a collaborative one, and Ben points to having the unusual gift of quality time to develop the story and craft the film. “Films work on many different levels –sound, aesthetics, story – and you aren’t often given the time to create something that people can absorb and respond to on many levels, which is the goal.” It took time to evolve the story to include both the technical aspects of how the orchard works as well as the human and emotional sides to the story like the film’s tribute to Sara, how to make the delicious Hewes apple sauce (‘no sugar or spices, just the apples’), and the parallels and contrasts between Terry’s day job and working in the orchard. “To really get at the best story, people need to let go of me hanging around with a camera. And that mixed well with Terrys’ style as the producer – he moves slowly, builds trust, and is cautious.” Ben notes that filmmakers are often forced into something that hasn’t been given much thought and likes to say, “On any hiking trip the best view is just a little further down the road, often further than most people are willing to go.” The film has a scene with Addie slowly counting back the rings of a tree that will be grafted to the year of her birth and beyond to illustrate the importance of taking the time to reflect on what came before us. “To keep the old varieties of apples around, it helps us understand ourselves better and our past better. They’re the fruit that our ancestors were eating,” says Addie. “Gnarled old trunks of trees that were there before you and will be there after you.”

The long-term vision for Whitman Brook is to create a public space with historic architecture projects, a conservatory, agriculture, culinary arts, fluvial systems, forestry, writing, and wildlife study. Terry has been steadily working toward that goal for more than 32 years. Parts of the property that were originally slated for development are now protected as wildlife habitat, and the land is largely contiguous to support animal migration and environmental conservation goals. “I’m staying true to my philosophy of doing the best quality possible.”

For more information on Whitman Brook visit the website, www.whitmanbrook.com. To learn more about Ben Silbfarb film visit www.bsilberfarb.com.

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