We called it berryin’.  The landowners might have called it trespassin’.

What they didn’t know didn’t hurt them.  They got to own the property and pay the taxes and say what was theirs.

Sanford and I got blueberry pie, blackberry pie, raspberry pie.  And lots of jam.

The summer I was 15, Sanford was 83.  Together, we owned nothing…Or everything, depending on how you looked at it.

I didn’t have a job.  Technically.  My brother and I mowed lawns for the second home owners in the neighborhood.  He mowed the lawns for the folks who paid him $15-20 per lawn.  Sometimes I mowed those.  Most of the time I mowed Ruth and Sanford’s lawn up at their farm.  She would offer me $5, and I would decline in favor of lunch.  And pie…Which was made from the berries Sanford and I would forage on the days I wasn’t mowing lawns.  

Sanford didn’t have a pot to piss in, either.  He wasn’t married to Ruth, who had inherited the farm from his brother.  Generations ago, Sanford had signed away his claim on the family property to his brother.  He’d been married at the time, living a few towns over.  His wife liked to assert her dominance in the marriage with a cast iron frying pan.  When his daughters were grown and out of the house, Sanford just upped and walked out with the shirt on his back.  He came back to West Fulton, took up residence in his old childhood bedroom, and there he stayed.  

We wanted for nothing, Sanford and me.  We scoped out wild berry patches all over town, and developed clandestine tactics for slipping into them unnoticed.  We’d get someone to drop us off nearby, then disappear into the landscape with our berry pails, emerging hours later when they were full.   We had the beauty — the summer light, the birds, the cicadas and crickets, the scent of wild thyme floating up from the thatch beneath our feet, the taste of sun-warm berries that stained our lips.  We had none of the responsibilities – no taxes, no liability, no need to find the income to make sure the land would be stewarded properly.

I would think that this was the way it had always been, and the way it would always be.  But Sanford would tell me how much things had changed.  Intellectually I understood how history had impacted this place — Ruth’s farm had a barn for livestock, then another barn for keeping the horse, wagons and tack for going to town.  Only in the past few decades had it been used to hold a car.  When Sanford talked about driving cars in his  young adult life, he’d instinctively mime turning a crank on the front bumper.  But to me, one summer day passed to the next, my hours in berry patches, mowing lawns, reading books on the front porch and eating Ruth’s pie stretching long, lazy and endless.

But, of course, it wasn’t endless.  Sanford passed from this world, leaving little more than some mustache wax, a bottle of turpentine, two pairs of suspenders, some flannel shirts and Dickies, and a few Playboy magazines from the 1950s.  

And I grew to become a partner on the family farm, keenly aware of what it takes to own land: the liability, the taxes, the insurance….As well as the amount of eggs, chickens, pigs, sheep and cows I’d have to sell in order to pay for the taxes and insurance.  Contrary to what summer felt like back in 1989, life started changing, and the rate of change just kept accelerating.  Our town went from fading, to forgotten, to obsolete…

And through it all, we kept plugging away at our family farm.  

And then, after 9-11, there was a flurry of land purchasing, and prices began to climb.  We became a destination for “affordable” budget-conscious second homes.  Our dirt roads and forests were soon trampled with ATVs, with a number of the new residents (although not all) berating us farmers for not selling our food for cheap enough .   Ag land prices began to climb beyond the reach of most would-be farmers.  Thankfully, those who managed to find their way to a patch of ground had a burgeoning local food movement to support them.   

After that, it was the pandemic.  

And property prices really soared.  

But this time, the change was different.  Radically different.

We got neighbors….Real, honest-to-goodness neighbors: Remote workers who wanted to live in the country.  These are folks who are home all day and live here year round.  It has changed our landscape yet again.  They do things like keep gardens, join the ambulance squad and the fire commission, fix up houses, show up for the potlucks and the concerts, and even come out to the cafe on Saturday.  They start families and micro-enterprises, prune the apple trees on their land, form friendships and infuse this town with a sense of hope and possibility.  They can afford to pay the local farmers for good food, with no belittling comments about what we do and don’t deserve.  

But with all this positive change, property values have gone way up.  And up.  And up.  

And while a farmer can stand a chance to make a living, it’s harder than ever for a new farmer to get on the ground.  

Two weeks ago, Kate texted a property listing for a farm just up the road from where Sanford and I used to sneak into the blueberry patch.  It’s considered “reasonably” priced at $465,000.  She considers the house “livable” for her family.  Others have called it a tear-down.   But she loves it, and feels like she could make it into something really beautiful.  And the farm has the land and barns she and her husband Joe would need to make their dream of breeding pigs and raising broilers a reality.  Better still, it cuts his work commute by two thirds.  

Kate worked as the livestock manager here at Sap Bush Hollow for five years before leaving and starting her family in another county.  Now she and Joe want to come home to be closer to their friends, and to be more embedded in the agricultural community here. 

And, quite frankly, we need them here.  Mom and Dad have been mentors to Kate, teaching her everything they know about caring for livestock.  When she runs into business and finance questions, she calls me.  In turn, when Mom and Dad were off the farm this spring because of her stroke, Kate was one of the first people Saoirse and Ula called when they ran into troubles during lambing season.  

Much has changed in this community, but there still remains a long history of interdependence between farmers.  We may run separate businesses and occasionally compete for sales, but the viability of each individual farm relies on the viability of all.  A more vibrant agricultural community keeps support services like feed stores, livestock auctions, ag education, large animal vets, extension programming and financial services available.  But it also holds the skills and knowledge that every farmer needs to draw from to keep things running.  One farmer may be good at castrating pigs.  Another at castrating bull calves.  Someone else knows how to pull calves or lambs.  Someone else is good with feeds and nutrition or working numbers or canning or identifying plant diseases or pig diseases or sheep diseases or cow diseases, or keeping websites running.   Our industry requires a vast and highly diversified skillset that few college-educated professionals ever have to acquire over the course of a career.  One critical way that we hold onto all of it is by having not just a local farm….but a farming community.

But farmers can’t play the real estate game the way other folks can.  The income from farming makes the real estate prices untenable.  And the steps to help a farmer get on the land are cumbersome.  “You have to be broke, with the biggest possible dream,” Kate tells me.  She and Joe are careful with their money, and balance their current ag enterprises with Joe’s off-farm job.  They’ve maintained good credit.  Because of that, they have risked disqualifying themselves from Farm Service Agency Loans, which offer substantially lower interest rates than conventional mortgages.  In order to get the lower interest rate that could save them over $100,000 over the course of their mortgage, they have to be rejected by commercial lenders, then fill out a 13 page application.  If they get through that process, then…and only then…can they put in an offer on the property.  By that time, in this booming market, it could be too late.

I listen to Kate explain the hurdles she and Joe are facing, and I consider the good fortune….indeed, the privilege, that I’ve had. 

We have ample farmland.  We have good homes to live in.  

Indeed, we’ve been here so long, we don’t even have mortgages any longer.

I think back to those days berryin’ with Sanford, when it looked as though we had nothing.  He wasn’t preparing me to have a million dollar income.  But he was preparing me to lead a priceless life.  In fact, he was giving me the keys to the kingdom.  He was showing me how to be part of a place, how to thrive no matter what was in my pocket.  Being part of a place has been our family’s secret weapon for competing in a real estate market that continues to be hostile to farmers.  What we lack in finances we make up for with time and relationships.  Our commitment to this town isn’t just for five or ten years, but for generations.  That’s easy to do when you know where to go to find the best blueberries and the sweetest blackberries and the quietest swimming holes and freshest sweet corn.  That kind of generational commitment is it’s own currency.  We’ve never made a real estate deal that didn’t have a neighbor-to-neighbor transaction enabling it — whether it was private land sales, or more forgiving negotiations through the brokers.  We have never been the highest bidder.  But we’ve been sincere.

I want that for Kate and Joe.  I want for their daughters to grow up knowing this land the way I grew up knowing this land, the way my children have grown up knowing this land.  I want that sense of place to empower them to work around the need for endlessly higher financial income…something I’ve never had to pursue.  Now, more than ever, there is a community here that will enable them to have a truly rich life that could span generations.  And now, more than ever, the community needs them to be here. 

If you enjoyed this, please share this podcast with friends & family to get the ideas to spread.  Better still, you can help make the magic happen for as little as $1/month by hopping over to Patreon and looking up Shannon Hayes.  Or, if it’s easier, you can also donate to support the podcast by sending a check to Shannon Hayes, ℅ Sap Bush Hollow Farm, 832 W. Fulton Rd, West Fulton, NY  12194.

And that’s a really important thing to do, because all of this— the podcast, the blog, the books and the creative recharging that happens over fall and winter—   are a result of the support of my patrons on Patreon.  This podcast operates much like public radio.  It is freely available to all, made possible by the gifts from our patrons.  And this week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons  Starla & Larry Peters & Carl Wick. Thank you, folks!  I couldn’t do it without you!   To learn more about Sap Bush Hollow Farm, find us on the web here.