Tim Lovett of Compass offers the opportunity to own your own 74-acre private sanctuary in the heart of Great Barrington. The architectural design firm of Clark Green + Bek works with new owners to transform Doctor Sax House from a private home to a stunning boutique hotel. A year-end wrap-up of 2024 real estate sales has surprises. Plus, recent sales and gardening columns and a home-cooking recipe.
“We don’t see as much agriculture here as you would in a different part of the country,” Sean Stanton explained; as a result, “you end up with people wondering why the cows are outside in the snow and not understanding how their systems work.”
The care and stewardship of an historic property offers a unique opportunity for area youth to glean lessons of the past as they develop ideas for a sustainable future.
I also learned that there’s plenty of good beer there, brewed in New England. And if you stand on one of the tables in one of the beer gardens, you can watch people pay 10 bucks for a lame monster truck ride.
And at the center of this work is connecting people who are already interested in local food and farm-to-table ideas but don’t have on the ground experience; getting folks on the farms and in the field.
“Our day is about collaborating — in particular the collaboration of farmers,” said Barbara Zheutlin, executive director of Berkshire Grown, to an impressive group of participants who gathered at Sky View Farm in Sheffield to kick off the day-long farm tour.
“I believe in a regional food system. In a perfect system, we’d have a little bottling plant here in South County and the milk wouldn’t leave the county.”
-- Balsam Hill Farm owner Morven Allen
“There are a lot of people trying to do organic farming around here. This [resolution] is about protecting our local organic farmers. If you get GMO seed into your field, you’re done.”
-- Selectboard member Bill Cooke, who introduced a draft resolution intended to protect the integrity of organic farms and their produce.
“The rug was pulled out from us after [Project Native’s] 15 years of work and investments of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. [For the Department of Agricultural Resources] to not explain is just wrong — it’s an injustice.”
--- Erik Bruun, Project Native Board Chairman
The new gene editing technology is so simple and straightforward that a bright grad student with a good teacher can learn to use CRISPR-Cas9 in a matter of weeks.
Maddie Elling and Abe Hunrichs of Hosta Hill were intrigued with recipes from Sandor Katz’s "Wild Fermentation," and excited by the opportunity to dig up ancient traditions and experiment with them in the 21st century.
The idea is to have a year round source of fresh food. Greenagers comes back in the fall, does a seasonal planting, and puts up hoops and plastic, turning it into a greenhouse.
The Leahey family has been farming in Lee since 1889 and it seems something of a miracle that this farm has not only survived but is reinventing itself.
