Our story begins around the turn of the millennium when we were expecting our first child and thinking passionately about how we wanted to nourish him. We planted our first garden, shopped at the co-op, and began working with whole foods: baking our own breads, tortillas, canning jams, and freezing small harvests. After an unexpected move to the coast of Maine, we took advantage of the climate, and began growing a lot of our own food, raising hens, and dreaming about a farm of our own where we might grow enough food to sustain ourselves.
The dream included a farm with an old barn, still standing, and a place to build a tiny net zero home. It also included many vegetable gardens, a farm stand, a mature apple orchard and sugarbush, a pond, a cleared pasture, at least 25 acres, and it had to be in a cool town in Vermont. This list grew over the years, as did our family. As a family of four, we had become very connected to our community in Maine, and suspected that we would not return to our home state until many years later when the kids were grown.
But one night at the kitchen table, in a moment of political frustration, we peeked at the real estate listings, and there was our farm! All of it! Waiting for us! So we jumped ship, all four of us, and said good-bye to our dear friends and the house that had been our home for almost a decade. We bought a used camper and landed, home.
In our first two years back, we built a small energy efficient house, a chicken coop and a sugar shack. We dug a pond, created gardens, grew some vegetables, planted berry bushes and more apple trees, thinned the sugarbush and boiled some sap. With the help of the Vermont State Conservation Grant, we began rehabbing an 1800s barn that is the only remaining structure of the original farm. In our third year, we launched a CSA, opened a farm-stand made and sold maple syrup, erected a hoop house, built a greenhouse and guest space.
Our dream evolves. We are doing what we love, in a beautiful place, and designing a means of sharing it all with others. We hope to continue to grow food, nourish our community, host events, and allow the dream to grow for generations.
Our story begins around the turn of the millennium when we were expecting our first child and thinking passionately about how we wanted to nourish him. We planted our first garden, shopped at the Read more...
Our story begins around the turn of the millennium when we were expecting our first child and thinking passionately about how we wanted to nourish him. We planted our first garden, shopped at the co-op, and began working with whole foods: baking our own breads, tortillas, canning jams, and freezing small harvests. After an unexpected move to the coast of Maine, we took advantage of the climate, and began growing a lot of our own food, raising hens, and dreaming about a farm of our own where we might grow enough food to sustain ourselves.
The dream included a farm with an old barn, still standing, and a place to build a tiny net zero home. It also included many vegetable gardens, a farm stand, a mature apple orchard and sugarbush, a pond, a cleared pasture, at least 25 acres, and it had to be in a cool town in Vermont. This list grew over the years, as did our family. As a family of four, we had become very connected to our community in Maine, and suspected that we would not return to our home state until many years later when the kids were grown.
But one night at the kitchen table, in a moment of political frustration, we peeked at the real estate listings, and there was our farm! All of it! Waiting for us! So we jumped ship, all four of us, and said good-bye to our dear friends and the house that had been our home for almost a decade. We bought a used camper and landed, home.
In our first two years back, we built a small energy efficient house, a chicken coop and a sugar shack. We dug a pond, created gardens, grew some vegetables, planted berry bushes and more apple trees, thinned the sugarbush and boiled some sap. With the help of the Vermont State Conservation Grant, we began rehabbing an 1800s barn that is the only remaining structure of the original farm. In our third year, we launched a CSA, opened a farm-stand made and sold maple syrup, erected a hoop house, built a greenhouse and guest space.
Our dream evolves. We are doing what we love, in a beautiful place, and designing a means of sharing it all with others. We hope to continue to grow food, nourish our community, host events, and allow the dream to grow for generations.
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