DIARY

April 11, 2023

Persephone has returned from the underworld! Trees are budding, leaves are emerging from the land, pastures are greener each day, and our little propagation greenhouse is filling up with vegetable seedlings. Every spring we are amazed and inspired by this annual miracle, and this year we are especially excited to start our second full growing season here in Potter Hollow. We sincerely look forward to welcoming friends and strangers alike to this special place to enjoy food, friendship, and the beauty of Nature.

We are thrilled to announce the official inauguration of Potter Hollow Kitchen, our collaboration with chef Melissa which began informally last November with the Fall Feast. This year, Potter Hollow Kitchen will offer fresh delicious food, skillfully prepared using top quality local ingredients (including the products of our own garden) and served right here on our farm. Starting later this month, we will kick off a series of seasonal feasts, and every weekend in June, July and August, we will offer coffee, fresh pastries and picnic fare (in addition to fresh produce) at our store in the barn.

Please save the afternoon of Saturday, April 29 for the first in our series of casual on-farm prix fixe meals. The Greek Revival Feast will celebrate the season of rebirth with spring delicacies inspired by the cuisines of Greece, and conviviality with friends and neighbors. Proceeds from this event will support the rescue and rehabilitation of the Greek Revival house at 4910 Potter Hollow Road, a beloved historic landmark in need of care. Event details coming soon.

Coming up on Thursday, April 20 at 7:00 PM, we will be at the Rensselaerville Library to talk with the local community about what we do. Please join us!

March 12, 2023

We are so glad to have the pelt of Bitch Muffin, an especially spirited Icelandic ewe who lived a good productive life up the hill at Heather Ridge Farm. She was the first sheep I ever laid my hands on. Hoping her fleece will magically make us tuff like she was.

February 23, 2023

One of several early barns that are no longer here 💔

February 2, 2023

We are never surprised when the groundhog foretells more winter for us here in North America. This tradition of weather-predicting animals was imported from the Palatinate, one of the warmest regions of Germany, where “if the badger sunbathes during the week of Candlemas, it stays in its hole for another four weeks.” For centuries, Candlemas on February 2 has been a celebration of returning light. The Christian holiday corresponds to ancient festivals like Imbolc, when “the ewes were milked at spring’s beginning” and animals were driven from fields to make way for planting. While this midpoint between solstice and equinox marks the opening of spring in traditional agricultural calendars of Europe, here in Potter Hollow, it’s the middle of winter. We are cold, but we happily welcome longer afternoons and many thrilling little seed packets!

January 29, 2023

We often wonder about the ecological history and prehistory of the place where we have our little farmstead. We are north of the Catskill high peaks, south of the Helderbergs, in a hollow in the valley of the so-called Catskill Creek. The surrounding landscape is now a patchwork of open fields cleared by farmers starting in the 1780s, and forest that has since regrown. Our house, barn, and garden are on the north side of a stream historically called the West Kill, later Potter Hollow Creek, which flows into the Catskill about a mile east of here. 

We have read that Potter Hollow was “settled” around 1806, but we don’t know what that means. According to the Cockburn Survey of Rensselaerville, several lots along the West Kill were inhabited or “improved” by 1787. Some 19th-century authors describe the area before the arrival of Europeans as an impenetrable “savage wilderness” inhabited by wolves, panthers, bears and birds, and no people: a dubious picture. According to a 20th-century source, in the 1760s, this country was “unpopulated except for roaming tribes of Indians from Stockbridge and Schoharie.” A 19th-century text mentions five footpaths used by Stockbridge (Mohican) and Schoharie (Mohawk) people in the 1770s, including one that followed the entire length of the Catskill, from its mouth at the Hudson to the vlaie, and on to Middleburgh. The Mohicans were reportedly “in the habit of camping for weeks on what is now Coon's meadow in Preston Hollow, during their fishing season in the Catskill Creek.”

Before European contact, Mohican people lived in small dispersed villages along tributaries of the upper Hudson, among networks of gardens and foraging areas. They seasonally grew crops, hunted and fished, and maintained open woodlands and meadowlands using intentional burning. But early in the 17th century, they became involved in trade with Iroquoians and Europeans, and by the 1780s, ravaged by disease, famine and social collapse, they had been forced from their homeland to places west of the frontier. Perhaps this displacement led to the growth of dense thickets encountered by early “settlers” at the end of the 18th century.

January 27, 2023

Just getting around to writing that our friend Matt replaced the farmhouse front door for us back in October—he was even good enough to dutchman the keyhole! 

This wonderfully weathered eight-panel Georgian door came to us from the Barn Doctor up the hill, and the shiny new brass rim lock and knobs came all the way from England. It replaces a recently manufactured faux woodgrain fiberglass door with fancy oval glass and satin-finish handle.

We were reminded to document this recently when some of the Sweeney sisters got in touch and shared memories and old photos of when they grew up here, including this adorable picture that shows a bit of the house c. 1999, white with a blue door. We don’t know if that door was original, and like many other parts of the house, it is now lost.

Lately we have been looking at a lot of old facades, attempting archival research, and generally trying to find out about the history of this building. The pilasters at the corners, entablature trim, and elaborate door surround suggest a date between 1830 and 1860—but we suspect that the oldest parts of the house are c. 1800, and the Greek Revival elements were applied later. A visit to the attic reveals one large timber post in front was cut near the top and moved over. Was this to make space for a stylish new doorway? 

January 23, 2023

Ajax has been spending a lot of his puppyhood frolicking in what we call The Brushy Place at the back of the pasture. He always has a good time there, but today’s snowfall makes it extra joyful!

January 2, 2023

Last Friday we acquired this abandoned Greek Revival house, which is situated prominently on the corner in the middle of Potter Hollow, right in front of our farmhouse. On New Years Day we went inside for the first time. The house has no functional plumbing, heating system, or electricity, and the basement and ground floor are filled almost to the ceiling with garbage. It’s going to take a long time, but we intend to fix it.