2009
2009 was a full, challenging year at Longacre Farm. Louise continues as Susan's right hand, and Brooks works half-time with Longacre and half-time with North Mountain Pastures, his, Anna's, and Matt's new meat-CSA business. Early in the year, our dear Chris began to lose her battle with cancer and, after a moving living memorial ceremony, passed away on April 3. Such a sadness for us all.
In the spring, we installed new high tensile fencing around the horse pasture, and Louise brought her horses over to our farm for good. Gizmo, Charlie, Gus, Firefly and Trey are fitting in just fine, and everyone seems to get along.
In June, about 100 Longacre alumni joined us for our 35th reunion weekend. After the celebration we rolled right into a very busy summer with many building projects. We attached a greenhouse to the Art House, built a new dock at the pond, constructed several chicken tractors, and added a beautiful tack room to the upper Horse Barn floor. We also painted an Amish quilt mural on the outside of the Horse Barn above the hayloft doors.
There were many more animals on the farm this summer, most of whom were rotationally grazed. Among them were our Milking Devons, Grace, Ashley and Priscilla, and a Tamworth gilt named Charlotte. We also had 12 sheep, 200 turkeys, four Nubian goats, and laying hens of many varieties out on pasture.
We had a number of returning staff this summer: Megan Gantt, Louise & Jake Warner, Matt Smith*, Dave Cordes, Brooks Miller, Anna Santini, Nathan Shulman*, Rachel John, Kim Wojnar, Cheyenne Christian, Pete Dow, and Rog Smith, when he could get there. Fitz and baby Jane joined us for the first week of the program. Our first year staff included Morgan Evans, Claire Hortens*, Jera Aurand, David Roth*, Greg Reed, Cora Goldfarb, Jacob Stone, Mike Oppor, and Tori Kuper.
In the fall, there was more change. We celebrated the bounty of the season with a Harvest Weekend in September, and Rog began converting the western-most bay of the Pole Barn to his dream wood shop. Matt and Megan started building a house on seven acres that was once part of Longacre Farm. After 33 years, the Smith family moved from 1001 Markelsville Road into the farmhouse at the center of the property, 6525 Creek Rd. The Longacre office moved into the basement of the Smiths' former house— now called the Community House—with Ray, Pete and Megan. Ray and Pete jumped right in and helped around the farm in many ways: feeding animals, building cranes, fixing things, and helping Louise and Jake renovate their church house on Markelsville Rd.