Welcome.

In 1979, Mom and Dad plunked their ideals and $40,000 down on some of the poorest farmland in one of the poorest counties in New York State. They dreamed of living off that land, of their children living off that land. And from the first night I laid my head down to rest on Sap Bush Hollow Farm as a child, I never wanted anything else. As I grew to adulthood and began a family of my own, I realized that this little farm was more than just a pastoral dream. It was an antidote to industrial food, climate change, harried living and social injustices. But how was one little grassfed livestock farm high in the mountains going to support two families? I looked to my Appalachian neighbors, who had lived well up here for generations, with little to no cash. If they could do it, so could we. We would simply have to learn to make what we couldn’t buy. I would become the radical homemaker.

I thought it was just a sensible choice. I didn’t know it would spark a revolution.

Thanks for dropping in. Feel free to look around and see what life is like for three generations of my family as we live, bicker, laugh, feast, farm and love high up here in these frost covered hills of Schoharie County, New York.

— Shannon Hayes, The Radical Homemaker