Hi all and welcome to our first post in our blog. Let me take you back to 2008, the year that we bought our farmhouse and the 27 odd acres that accompanied it.
We at that time were living in Astoria NYC in a neighborhood that I was born and raised half my life in. The other half was spent in Barryville NY in Sullivan County. I moved back to Astoria in 2001 when I accepted a position in Finance on Wall Street. I did well for myself but it was quite an empty existence, chasing promotions and raises and having to always be at the head of the pack so to speak.
I always deep down inside knew that this would not be my lifelong profession and I had a crazy dream that I was going to be a farmer one day since at least they serve a purpose in this world day in day out.
In 2005 I met the most beautiful woman and intelligent woman that I had ever seen and could only have imagined in my wildest dreams. We married in 2006 and had our first child in 2007 followed by another child in 2008. We were still living in Astoria at the time but we started splitting our time in Sullivan County in Upstate New York. We quickly realized that our current home in Upstate New York would no longer accommodate us so we started our search for a more comfortable and spacious home. After discussing with my wife that I really wanted to buy an old farmhouse with some acreage for us to be able to hunt on and have a garden and maybe have a few animals, we looked to our neighbor state Pennsylvania.
The taxes were much more reasonable as are the price of the homes in general. We looked at a lot of homes in a lot of places in NEPA before we found our home. When the realtor pulled up to the home I leaned over to my wife and said, " We're buying this one, this is our new house!".
After buying it and taking a tally of what needed fixing we decided for our children's health as well as our own health, we would try and do every renovation in a Green and sustainable fashion. Everything from the roof we put on to the caulk that we used was no or low v.o.c. and no lead, non- toxic, etc.
We finally moved in and we had twins on the way. After babies 3 and 4 were coming we decided to really get serious about getting our gardens in order and we started to look for heritage breed animals for our farm. We started by looking to buy Black Java chickens but they were nowhere to be found. We did come across a study that was being conducted at a University in the Mid-West and we left our contact information and proceeded to purchase a starter flock of mutt chickens for meat and eggs as well a flock of Guinea Hens to naturally keep down the tick population. We had to wait until 2011 to receive our Javas but they were here. The Black Java was important to us because they are touted to be the ideal homestead chicken which is a dual purpose breed used for meat and eggs. We definitely have no complaints about them and they have more than lived up to their reputation.
We at that time were living in Astoria NYC in a neighborhood that I was born and raised half my life in. The other half was spent in Barryville NY in Sullivan County. I moved back to Astoria in 2001 when I accepted a position in Finance on Wall Street. I did well for myself but it was quite an empty existence, chasing promotions and raises and having to always be at the head of the pack so to speak.
I always deep down inside knew that this would not be my lifelong profession and I had a crazy dream that I was going to be a farmer one day since at least they serve a purpose in this world day in day out.
In 2005 I met the most beautiful woman and intelligent woman that I had ever seen and could only have imagined in my wildest dreams. We married in 2006 and had our first child in 2007 followed by another child in 2008. We were still living in Astoria at the time but we started splitting our time in Sullivan County in Upstate New York. We quickly realized that our current home in Upstate New York would no longer accommodate us so we started our search for a more comfortable and spacious home. After discussing with my wife that I really wanted to buy an old farmhouse with some acreage for us to be able to hunt on and have a garden and maybe have a few animals, we looked to our neighbor state Pennsylvania.
The taxes were much more reasonable as are the price of the homes in general. We looked at a lot of homes in a lot of places in NEPA before we found our home. When the realtor pulled up to the home I leaned over to my wife and said, " We're buying this one, this is our new house!".
After buying it and taking a tally of what needed fixing we decided for our children's health as well as our own health, we would try and do every renovation in a Green and sustainable fashion. Everything from the roof we put on to the caulk that we used was no or low v.o.c. and no lead, non- toxic, etc.
We finally moved in and we had twins on the way. After babies 3 and 4 were coming we decided to really get serious about getting our gardens in order and we started to look for heritage breed animals for our farm. We started by looking to buy Black Java chickens but they were nowhere to be found. We did come across a study that was being conducted at a University in the Mid-West and we left our contact information and proceeded to purchase a starter flock of mutt chickens for meat and eggs as well a flock of Guinea Hens to naturally keep down the tick population. We had to wait until 2011 to receive our Javas but they were here. The Black Java was important to us because they are touted to be the ideal homestead chicken which is a dual purpose breed used for meat and eggs. We definitely have no complaints about them and they have more than lived up to their reputation.
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