How it started
Six hens and a bad idea
The plan was six hens. Six hens is a reasonable number for two people who both had jobs. Then the
feed store had chicks in the spring, and then somebody needed to rehome a rooster, and then a
neighbor's ducks decided our pond was better than theirs.
A hundred and twenty birds later we were giving eggs away faster than we could gather them, which is
how a hobby becomes a farm stand. We put a cooler and a coffee can at the end of the driveway. The
coffee can is still out there.
The garden
Then Gail discovered dahlias
What started as a row of zinnias along the driveway is now a quarter acre of dahlias, sunflowers,
cosmos, snapdragons and enough Queen Anne's lace to make everything look effortless.
Gail cuts in the morning while it is still cool and the buckets go straight into the walk-in. If you
have ever wondered why a farm bouquet lasts twice as long as a grocery-store one, that is the whole
secret: cut cold, and never let it get warm again.
The barn
Built 1932, still earning its keep
The frame is hand-hewn oak with mortise-and-tenon joints and wooden pegs — not a structural nail in
the original build. It has been a dairy barn, a hay barn, a place somebody stored a boat for eleven
years, and now it is where people get married.
We re-roofed it, ran power and lights, leveled the floor and left everything else exactly as it was.
The graffiti in the loft goes back to 1907 and it is staying.
