Cozy apartment overlooking our small farm. Family Friendly.

I grew up in Southern Texas, my parents were originally New Yorkers and thus moved back to the North East when I was 12, to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I went to college in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina. After graduation I moved to Boston, meeting up with my now husband who was in graduate school there. We lived in Boston until my husband wanted to go back to school and finish his PhD, which brought us to Capitol Hill in our Nation's Capital. That was a hectic place, so much happening all the time especially after 911. I spent a few more years in the IT industry, taking different federal government jobs until having my second child and realizing I could not raise my children, manage a 247 job and stay healthy. I finally quit and put my passion into our children, creating community gardens around SE DC and starting a direct farm to consumer buying club, which helped bring better food options to our family and hundreds of others in the DC Metro Area. After 7 years on the Hill and having two young boys we decided to move to Takoma Park, MD just over the boarder from DC. We lived there for 5 years, enjoying the diverse community and a much larger yard where we had chickens and implemented a permaculture design around our house. It was lovely, but the urban area eventually wore me down and I really wanted to continue my pursuit of gardening and expand it into farming, that's when we moved to our current location in Columbia County, New York. We haven't looked back since. During our stay in Takoma Park I was homeschooling our children but felt once my eldest reached third grade that I needed to find a more cultured environment for him to learn, thus we began looking for Waldorf schools in a strong farming community and near potential academic jobs for my husband, that's when we settled in Ghent, NY. Realizing this area has a strong short term rental economy and that we have a great location to share we decided to add a second story to our barn.

We chose Columbia County and the Ghent area because I had been coming up to the Hawthorne Valley Farm store for years, pickup up raw milk and other health food products when I would visit my sister and her family in Pouquag, NY an hour south. It's beautiful here, a truly magical place year round. There is always something for our children to do, either outside our house, with friends from the community or going to cultural events or festivals. We chose our current location because the forest and neighboring open space is beautiful and has the potential to be farmed, it's close to our children's school and amenities in NY or MA. Our property has a year round stream flowing threw it, a large pond, it's hilly and offers magnificent sunsets. It's also a sunny spot facing South with a nice Eastern sunrise.

The house and barn were rustic when we purchased them but the potential was obvious in such a gorgeous setting. The property was a hunting cabin for 25 years before we purchased it, so the main house is in progress. We decided first to invest our time and energy into expanding the barn and creating an apartment. Initially I wanted the apartment to have someone living on site to help with the farm, but expanding our farm will take time especially as I spend a lot of time with my children one of whom is not in school full time yet. So, it made more sense to rent our apartment out short term, we always wanted to have the option for farm stays when we left the city and we offer a very unique and special experience. It's so nice to be able to reconnect with where your food comes from and to enjoy the tranquility of a well run farm with happy animals and beautiful gardens.