Everyone should be able to have their own flock, so we gave our neighbors this starter kit, complete with cookie cutter.


We wish you a warm and wonderful new year.

Marc and Judy
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Summer around here ends with the Fonda Fair, our local county fair which closes on Labor day. When the fair is over, summer is over.  Kids go back to school and we begin in earnest selling our lambs.


Plate of deep fried vegetables


Go Swifty, Go!

There have been County fairs in the US since before it was the US.  There’s some dispute whether the first county fair was held in Fredericksburg, VA (1738) or York, PA (1765) but the first state fair was held in Syracuse, NY in 1841. Then, as in now, ...

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Farming involves a lot of looking forward and hoping.  All through June we were hoping the rains would stop – and worried that they wouldn’t.  On the 28^th of June the Otsquago Creek swelled,  jumped its banks, and flooded the village of Fort Plain.  In those days hope was hard to find amid the sadness.  Here are some pictures of the devastation.

It was heartwarming to see the efforts of the neighbors going into the affected area to clean-up, but shocking to see how much damage there was.  ...

Continue reading ...

The Dutch barn dominates the profile of our farm from across the road.  You can’t really tell from that angle but from the side you can see that the barn is undergoing major repairs.  The work is even more impressive when one steps over one of the new sills.  This is our biggest project yet.



In 2009 we bought “the old Getman farm” from Florence and Eleanor Getman.  The farm, 95 acres in the hamlet of East Stone Arabia in Montgomery County, New York, had been in the Getman family since th...
Continue reading ...

As we scramble to get ready for winter it is a bit of a shock to realize that summer is over.  We got a lot done but many things, including writing regular blogs, were left undone.  Autumnal signs like spectacular foliage, the cold and the need to sell lambs all snuck up, and it took this summer photo of Judy's nephew running after our goat to jolt us into realizing that summer is over, and into taking a moment to remember it.


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The parlor walls were bare when we bought the farm.  The old Fritz Vogt picture was missing from its place of pride for the first time since it was commissioned by George Getman in 1894.    At that time the farm had already been in Getman hands for seventy years and was thriving.    Vogt was an itinerant German artist who spent a few years travelling around the Mohawk Valley drawing sketches of prosperous local farmsteads in return for room, board, and, at least from wealthier patrons, actual...
Continue reading ...

What has 48 legs, a wooly face, and baas in the morning? Our new lawn mower. It’s hard being a beginning farmer. You never know what you can do. Will the garden grow? When will it grow? Did I plant the right mix of veggies? The answer to that last one is a decided no, but I’ll deal with that later.

We have a couple of acres of field around the house.  Scott, a neighbor, brush hogged them short earlier this year when they were waist high. But the grass pretty much never stops growing i...

Continue reading ...

Everyone should be able to have their own flock, so we gave our neighbors this starter kit, complete with cookie cutter.


We wish you a warm and wonderful new year.

Marc and Judy
Continue reading ...

Summer around here ends with the Fonda Fair, our local county fair which closes on Labor day. When the fair is over, summer is over.  Kids go back to school and we begin in earnest selling our lambs.


Plate of deep fried vegetables


Go Swifty, Go!

There have been County fairs in the US since before it was the US.  There’s some dispute whether the first county fair was held in Fredericksburg, VA (1738) or York, PA (1765) but the first state fair was held in Syracuse, NY in 1841. Then, as in now, ...

Continue reading ...

Farming involves a lot of looking forward and hoping.  All through June we were hoping the rains would stop – and worried that they wouldn’t.  On the 28^th of June the Otsquago Creek swelled,  jumped its banks, and flooded the village of Fort Plain.  In those days hope was hard to find amid the sadness.  Here are some pictures of the devastation.

It was heartwarming to see the efforts of the neighbors going into the affected area to clean-up, but shocking to see how much damage there was.  ...

Continue reading ...

The Dutch barn dominates the profile of our farm from across the road.  You can’t really tell from that angle but from the side you can see that the barn is undergoing major repairs.  The work is even more impressive when one steps over one of the new sills.  This is our biggest project yet.



In 2009 we bought “the old Getman farm” from Florence and Eleanor Getman.  The farm, 95 acres in the hamlet of East Stone Arabia in Montgomery County, New York, had been in the Getman family since th...
Continue reading ...

As we scramble to get ready for winter it is a bit of a shock to realize that summer is over.  We got a lot done but many things, including writing regular blogs, were left undone.  Autumnal signs like spectacular foliage, the cold and the need to sell lambs all snuck up, and it took this summer photo of Judy's nephew running after our goat to jolt us into realizing that summer is over, and into taking a moment to remember it.


Continue reading ...

The parlor walls were bare when we bought the farm.  The old Fritz Vogt picture was missing from its place of pride for the first time since it was commissioned by George Getman in 1894.    At that time the farm had already been in Getman hands for seventy years and was thriving.    Vogt was an itinerant German artist who spent a few years travelling around the Mohawk Valley drawing sketches of prosperous local farmsteads in return for room, board, and, at least from wealthier patrons, actual...
Continue reading ...

What has 48 legs, a wooly face, and baas in the morning? Our new lawn mower. It’s hard being a beginning farmer. You never know what you can do. Will the garden grow? When will it grow? Did I plant the right mix of veggies? The answer to that last one is a decided no, but I’ll deal with that later.

We have a couple of acres of field around the house.  Scott, a neighbor, brush hogged them short earlier this year when they were waist high. But the grass pretty much never stops growing i...

Continue reading ...