looking for the right greenhorns in Vermont
yes, it's mid-season, but this is quite a nice opportunity for some bright-eyed greenhorns out there. Interested? Email [email protected] Here is a tempting description from the current landowner.
The Land: 20 Acres of Fields, 40 of Woods, qualifies as organic.
When I was young, the woods were used to graze cows and the fields reserved for crops. The crops were rotated and i learned to pitch hay off the hay wagon into the hay loft—where we had parties, Farming has since changed dramatically. Rotating crops is coming back. Composting is thriving mostly selling to vegetable and flower farmers. Good 2nd-crop hay is expensive and scarce because all the rain we’ve been getting is making it difficult to collect. The fields could be a learning grounds for caring for animals and plants, Appropriate shelters would need to be constructed. Students could make their own food and apprentice with dairy, cheese and vegetable growers.
The pictures are of the fields, house, and carriage shed. The farm qualifies as organic. We found few stones plowing this field which has wonderful soil, and planted winter rye grass in rows parallel to the sloping land. The farmhouse has 10 rooms, room to make an apartment for the right couple. The part of the house on the left is the original house elegantly built probably in the 1870s. There was a 3 story barn amply supplied with water from a spring on a hill above it. The barn burned down.
The heirloom apple orchard produced apples neighbors adored to make wonderful apple pies. I would like to restore the woods to produce not only maple sugar but healthy trees to use locally-made wood to build locally-made small sustainable start-up houses that can expand with the family the way old-timers did. I would like to restore the sugarbush, the apple orchard, the fields with compost and kelp to grow multiple grains and hay, and rebuild shelters for pigs, cows, Shetland and Morgan horses, flowers and herbs. Highfields is the name my family gave the farm. It derives its health from a watershed that runs South into the Lamoille River Valley and north into the Black River Valley that runs into Lake Memphramagog. The barn, carriage shed and house were spring fed. I would like to help greenhorns discover how old-timers appreciated and cared for the fields and woods before the discovery of ancient sunshine (fossil fuels). If you know any greenhorns who might like to use my property to restore my farm, I’d like to meet them. Ideally I’d make an arrangement with them before August 15th.