Lucky Garden Art

Is A Family Affair

By Dottie Evans

A cottage industry in lawn sculpture has sprung up in a Bresson Farm Road garage, and the workers are putting in overtime getting out the product.

You won’t find it on a website, but you might want to visit Jim and Sue Shortt’s Organic Farm Market and Nursery off Riverside Road in Sandy Hook where several “Hoof C Daisies” are on display among the perennials and flower pots that decorate the market entrance.

Designed and fabricated (mainly) by the two Hanulik sisters, Lauren, 14, and Victoria, 10, the Hoof C Daisy has been created out of old iron horseshoes arranged and welded together into the form of a flower. Standing about four feet tall on a sturdy iron rod, every Hoof C Daisy is brightly painted in orange, purple, yellow, pink, blue or green.

They cost $25 each and may be purchased at the Shortts’ farm market, which is open every day from 10 am to 5 pm.

Over most of spring and early summer, the Hanulik girls have turned out a couple dozen Hoof C Daisies following an assembly-line process in which every family member has an important job to do. Adopting the role of company spokesperson, Lauren described the production process during an interview at her home Thursday, July 7.

“Mom gets the old horse shoes for us. Then we remove the nails, clean them, and poke the dirt out of the holes. We have to sand them smooth before priming and painting,” explained Lauren.

“The sanding is really hard, because they’re so dirty and rusty,” added Victoria.

Her mother, Graceann Hanulik, might disagree.

“The hardest part is hauling that big box full of horseshoes around in the back of the van along with all the other stuff that Lauren needs for high school marching band,” said Mrs Hanulik.

She added she is extremely grateful for the help of Sandy Hook ferrier John Favicchia, who saves discarded horseshoes for them.

Mrs Hanulik also handles the marketing side of the business. It was she who thought up the name Hoof C Daisies and designed the nametag that is wired to each flower before it goes out the door.

“They aren’t laminated yet. We’re still working on that,” she said.

As with most ideas turned into actual products, inspiration precedes perspiration.

It was Victoria who began playing with the horseshoes that her sister, Lauren, a horseback rider, had begun collecting. Sitting cross-legged on the barn floor, she was fond of arranging them into designs to see what she could make –– perhaps a wreathe for the holidays or a table top for the patio.

When she found that five linked horseshoes made a perfect daisy, she knew she was onto something. That’s when her father, Christopher Hanulik, got involved.

“I took them to my shop and welded them together, adding a center pole and another horseshoe at the bottom for stability,” said Mr Hanulik, who works in a sheet metal shop in Stamford.

As soon as friends and relatives saw the prototype, they convinced the Hanuliks to go into production.

“It helps,” said Mrs Hanulik, “that the girls are home for summer vacation.”

And she is grateful to the Shortts for agreeing to take the Hoof C Daisies on consignment.

Finding more outlets to promote and sell the product is an ongoing challenge.