We live our lives, in our suburban house, going to work (ok, yes,
to an interesting job that takes me very interesting places), engaging with
friends, but generally stay in the little bubble we’ve created for ourselves.
This past week we visited friends who run a farm in the
Catskill Mountains, outside Oneonta New York. It took us out of our lives in ways
we’d never anticipated.
Stone and Thistle Farm is very much a working farm that
produces free-range meats for sale. Our friends, Denise and Tom Warren—who left
Brooklyn almost 20 years ago—run the farm themselves and have just one employee
and a 16 year-old son still at home, Shane, who does the work of a man. Four
people and about…
400 laying chickens
1100 broiler chickens
350 turkeys
100 pigs
150-200 sheep
40 cattle
30 goats
50 rabbits
5 guard dogs (and 2 new puppies—guard dogs in training)
And one house dog—Tony.
All I can say is that it’s a hell of a lot of work and I
have nothing but admiration for their determination and drive to make it all work.
We first met when Denise and I worked at the design firm
Corporate Annual Reports. I was 25, she 27—we were both young women taking
Manhattan by storm and managing large corporate clients, from GTE to Nabisco.
Denise and Tom had met at college and were soon married. They bought about 80
acres in the late 1980s and would retreat there on weekends. Somewhere along
the line, Tom decided that law school was not for him… farming was. They made the
move north in 1995 and, with a handful of sheep and goats, embarked on a new
life.
Meat farming is no easy task. It’s a full-time job—that is
6am until 8pm, 365 days a year. Tom says, however, that the hardest part is
business management. They make all their income during the 7-8 warmer months
and almost nothing during the winter. And winters in upstate New York are cold,
cold, cold (and heat is very expensive!).
 |
| Ready for the slaughter |
Stone & Thistle Farm sells meat. Each weekend they
attend 5 different farmer’s markets, from Brooklyn NY to Oneonta. It’s a lot of
work. Every Thursday Tom, Shane, and Susannah prepare about 80 chickens and 20
ducks for market—and by prepare I mean they kill them, remove the feathers, cut
them into sellable pieces (breasts, thighs, etc.).
They make sausage for sale—about
20 different varieties—and also sell eggs as well as bacon, ham, and steak, among
other meats.  |
| Shane assisting at the Oneonta Farmer's Market |
 |
| Fable meals are served in the gorgeous kitchen addition. |
But that’s not all. Denise brings her marketing acumen and
ingenuity to create revenue. A fabulous cook, Denise now runs Fable, a farm to
table dinner every other Saturday night and a brunch on alternating Sundays.
The food is all local, the meat and many of the vegetables from their farm, and
other foods from other neighbors farms—including the wine served. It’s all
local. She also now has a corner of the house set up as a B&B and also a sweet
cabin in a quiet setting down by the Kortright Creek. Both are available
through airbnb.
 |
| Cleaning eggs - a daily task |
The work never stops. We were glad to be there, after not
seeing Denise and Tom for about 15 years (kids and farm-running getting in the
way), to catch up on life, and to help out however we could. We tried to be good guests and workers, assisting
with everything from picking blueberries to helping clean dozens and dozens of
eggs, picking beans and zucchini and digging up potatoes for dinner, to helping
prepare the cabin for guests after the goats had ascended the porch to eat the
flowers on display—what a mess!).
It was a wonderful few days for us—and
our old dog Bella, who is exhausted after charging through the new environment,
challenging geese (who of course challenged her back), sniffing chicken guts, hiding
with Tony under the house during a thunder storm, and relaxing (as is her usual
mode).
The best part, of course, was catching up with old friends.
Despite lives that have gone in very different directions, finding the core
friendship that can be picked up so easily even after so many years was the
most fun. Denise and Tom’s lives are not easy, but they have wonderful friends
nearby who look out for them, the most thoughtful, sweet son (who warmed to us
after initial wariness!), and each other. Discovering all this was not what I’d
planned when I suggested a brief visit—but we’re so glad we did.
 |
| Sunset over the farm |
