Alex on moving day, 1997.
May 9, 1997. On this date, fifteen years ago, we closed escrow, closed the door on the past, and opened the door on the future. We slept in our new house for the first time, and in the morning woke up to view OUR farm. We had traveled the country in a Ford F-350, and towed our old Honda behind. We picnicked in parking lots, broke down in Hope, Arkansas, visited friends, family and National Parks along the way, and finally pulled into New York on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, 1996. The winter was spent in a drafty, rented farmhouse down the road from my folks, and and we spent that whole winter looking at farms within a 50 mile radius of my family's home in Nichols. We found our farm in March, and waited an eternity (two months) for it to be ours. Since then, our children have grown, we've fenced pastures and picked rock, we've gardened, we've raised thousands of chickens. When we moved in, the farm was silent. An old, used up dairy farm, farmed with conventional methods for many years, it had skinny hedgerows, few insects or birds, and worn out pastures. Now, after 15 years, nature is healing our corner of the world. The birds have returned, now that there are enough insects for them to eat. The red-tailed hawks and the bald eagles returned with the rabbits. Wild turkeys pass through the pastures. Yesterday, Alex told me he startled a family of pheasants at the edge of the hay field.
There are often days when it feels like we are getting nowhere. Change is sometimes unbearably slow. Anniversaries give us an opportunity to step back and reflect. We have accomplished so much, in just fifteen years.
There are often days when it feels like we are getting nowhere. Change is sometimes unbearably slow. Anniversaries give us an opportunity to step back and reflect. We have accomplished so much, in just fifteen years.