Then we moved to Journey's End Farm in sunny Pennsylvania, where it's also cold and dark and full of lovely people.
At Journey's End the Curtises let us start up a small CSA on their property.
(The adventure of those gardens is documented at www.journeysendcsa.blogspot.com)
Journey's End Farm is an incredible place and we learned so much from living there and growing vegetables for market there. The experience led us to feel called to grow vegetables for a living, and we decided to look for our own land all over the northeast. So this winter we wrote a business plan and started looking for properties via farmer-to-farmer land link organizations, for sale by owner listings, word of mouth, realtors, and signs by the side of the road. In March we took a weekend to travel to Vermont to look at properties, and after an unsuccessful trip we traveled south to visit our friend Tom in Rutland. On our way out from the detour to Tom's place, we spotted a "for sale" sign and pulled over to check it out.
Beautiful open field between barn and river
1820s timberframe
barn
Mill River
We had a nice impromptu tour of the land and visit with the owners. We liked the place, and it seemed like it would meet our business and personal needs. After a long discernment process, a few visits to the property, some research into the local farming community, farmers markets, co-op, Quaker meeting, etc... we realized that we felt called to make an offer on this property.
After much paperwork and phone calls, we became the owners of a Massey Ferguson 135 and the property June 23rd!
Picnicing by the river after becoming landowners. Weird.
Many thanks to the people who made this move possible: Terri and Dave, our generous loan officers who believe in lending money to young 20-somethings to start a farm (hooray!). Sandy, Kara's grandmother who also believes in loaning money to young farmers. Our agent, Julie of Equine Homes, who bent over backwards for 2 months or so. Otis. Robert. Colleen, our friend over at Fidelity. Tom, who lived in the right place at the right time. Lindsay and Scott, who introduced us to the Rutland area. Our third farmer, Ryan's dad. Not enough thanks to all our parents, our aunts and uncles, Sarina, and so many other friends and family members who have helped to provide us with the needed support to start making our dream come alive. Thank you.
Ryan and his dad figuring out how to get a plow off his trailer. A local farmer, Greg, generously lent his plow for the day.
First few plow passes
3 acres plowed up
view from a corner of the property
Mill River in June
So after plowing, Ryan's parents gave us the gift of hiring our new neighbors to run their discs over the fields. Some fields are now in summer cover crop.... And that's how this all began.
