This past weekend I visited my best friend at his farm in Jefferson NY, a small town in the northern foothills of the Catskills. It is a beautiful piece of property (~100 acres) of open pasture land and forest. While I did not grow up on a farm, we did have chickens, which has since made me a bit of an egg-snob. As a kid and then at the University of New Hampshire I had the opportunity to work on two vegetable farms, which were great experiences.
It was interesting and exciting to visit my friend's young farm. In a way he is bringing a very old farm back to life, the land has not been in agriculture for a few decades. Farming is certainly more than a job, it's a way of life, and it seems to suit him perfectly.
The northeast is dotted with small farms, and their historical remnants. My grandparents grew up on farmland in New Hampshire which are now housing developments, but much of the historical agricultural land in New England converted back to forest when farmers headed to factory jobs in the city, or to better soil conditions in the Midwest. The property I grew up in Springfield NH was an old homestead. Besides the standard stonewalls found throughout the Northeast, the stone foundation from the house, a stone slab where the barn was, and the old stone-lined well is all that remains. While wandering in the woods, my twin brother and I would occasionally find remnants of the old farm: such as gnarly old apple trees, metal wheel rims, and rusted-out steel buckets.
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| They have sheep, goats, chickens, and bees. |
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