Langwater Farm

Holy cow, this is actually happening!

I’ve been thinking this to myself, oh, about every hour or so for the past week, ever since we got the news that we will soon be farmers. This time next year, we’ll be planting, weeding, hoeing, tractoring, harvesting, distributing, all on our very own farm. It still doesn’t seem quite real– it’s terribly exciting, and excitingly terrifying.

How did this come to be? It all started with a little email via New England Land Link that a land trust was seeking a farmer for property in Easton, Massachusetts. Since Kevin and his wife Kate live nearby, it seemed like a potentially perfect opportunity, especially since Rory and I have been keeping the idea of a move back to Massachusetts on the back burner. So we wrote a proposal. And another proposal. And an interview and many conference calls later, we now find ourselves the shocked and delighted tenants-to-be of a beautiful piece of farmland! The lease is not finalized yet, so nothing’s set in stone, but the process is under way and we are feeling good about working with the landowners and about the land.

About the land. It’s 80 acres total, about half woods, half fields. The property belongs to the Ames family of Easton. Part of the property was originally designed by landscape architect Fredrick Law Olmsted, the creator of Central Park. Needless to say, it is drop-dead beautiful. Fields gently curving against woods, surrounded by stone walls, dirt roads snaking through the woods and fields and over small streams, all bordered by Langwater Pond on the west.

Currently the property is not farmed. It’s a bunch of fields and woods. However, apparently back in the day, it was the home of Langwater Farm, famous for its Guernsey cows and Clydesdale horses. Here is a Langwater cow on the farm– note that the view is the same as our photo from Rory’s Iphone on the blog header (photo from lindahowardstein’s photostream on Flickr).

We’ll be calling our farm Langwater Farm, both at the request of the Ames family and as a nod to the rich history of this land.

We are looking forward to documenting our experiences getting the farm up and running here on this blog, and invite you to track the progress of our future farm. Stay tuned for future posts on leases, tractor shopping, farm stand construction, and so much more!