Blueberries are in Season

Our blueberries are finally in season.  They are perfect in recipes or just straight out of a bowl.

Seen on the back of "Big Blue", our retired snow plow truck

Honey Extraction and Baklava

The honey bees have never been busier than this year and to our surprise, we had 8 supers to extract from in no time at all providing us with nearly 300 pounds of honey with our first extraction.

Our entomologist friend and resident apiarist, Brent, prepares to gather the supers

Honeycomb 

We eat the honeycomb too - there are many nutritional values to this delicious treat

Filling the honey jars for sale at our farmstand

Many delicious ways to use honey - here, Katharina and Quinlan prepare Baklava

So many paths to enjoyment

Early morning

Look to this day...

“Look to this day for it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence. The bliss of growth, the glory of action, the splendor of beauty... For yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision.  But today well-lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day.”  - Kalidasa (sanskrit)

Foxglove - the Harbinger of Summer

Foxglove has always been the calendar for announcing summer.  Being a biennial, the surprise comes in guessing where we will see it growing from year to year.   Foxglove can grow in the pastures where the sheep graze, as they would never eat this poisonous beauty.

Reader Question: The Origins of Barberry Hill Farm (repost)

Kingsley's Uncle Bronson, at the Madison Beach Club location, 1910

Dear Kelly and Kingsley,
Every time I pick up my CSA, I wonder about the history of Barberry Hill Farm. How did it start?  Thanks, and I loved my share box!  



That's a great question.  Barberry Hill Farm has been in our family since it was built back in 1909.

Kingsley's great uncle, Henry Warren Goddard was a circuit court judge in New York City.  As a little boy, he and his five brothers and one sister had summered in Madison in the mid 1800's.

Just after the turn of the century, he bought this property, while his brother Ralph Goddard bought the property across the street.  They both built summer and weekend homes.   When Henry Warren Goddard died, Kingsley's father, Richard Mason Goddard Jr.. bought it from Henry's widow.

While it has been a gentleman's farm, Barberry Hill Farm was evolved into a working farm by Kingsley when his father died in 1987.

Here are some family photographs of the farm and Madison from the early days.   

Our Driveway

The Barns

The original caretaker who lived in the farmer's cottage.

The Farmer's Cottage

The Farm Dog

The Maid

Middle Beach Road

Kingsley's Father, A Great Fisherman

"The Kite"

"The Florence"

Kingsley's Grandfather and Great Uncle in "The Florence"

Picnicking on Tuxis Island

Enjoying Madison