After 16 years of living in Manhattan, longing for more space and a reprieve from the urban jungle, my wife Sara and I decided to buy a farm in the Hudson Valley. Technically her dream was to own an old yellow house and i added "farm" but nonetheless, we're now the proud owners of of both.
"Wildly Charming" was how it was described in the listing and every corner of it is, embodying everything we could imagine a country home outside the city would look like. The elderly artist/woodworker couple who owned it, bought it back in the 80's when they were the age Sara and I are now and kept it immaculate condition.
Built in 1780, Black Sheep Farm, sits on a small parcel of land in Staatsburg, NY, just outside Rhinebeck. The small yellow farmhouse has a tin roof, and turquoise blue door. The gardens were meticulously designed, the vegetable garden flourishing and every time we visit it, we find something new and quirky that we fall in love with. There's a revolutionary war stone wall surrounding the property and a hobby farm that completes micro-farm.
I quickly lost the battle to keep the animals that once included four sheep (one black), three goats, about two-dozen geese, a duck named Charlie, a ferrel cat named Sally and roughly twenty chickens. All but one goat, the duck and the cat have since made their way to their new home but the farm structures remains so it not out of the realm of possibility to own few. Perhaps a few ironic named farm animas may make their way back on over the years like a pig named Bacon and a sheep named Chops.
I should add, I grew up in a New York suburb and my wife in a Detroit one. We don't know a thing about farming. The closest thing to a garden i've ever had is a Click-and-Grow hydroponic in our apartment in the city. i call the super to get our light bulbs changed. This should be an interesting adventure to say the least and at best, a modern day Funny Farm but we couldn't be more excited.
First order of business -- rename the farm Murray Hills Farm after our black lab Murray who's named after the West Village cheese shop and ironically the a NYC neighborhood i despise.