This has been an amazing year. We started 2015 wondering how we could keep our farm running, how we could keep the generations together, how we could bring in the help we needed. And we fought. And we cried. And we dreamt.
And you, dear readers, dreamt with us. You shared our wishes, our prayers, our ideas, our tears. Thank you for that. Because with all that energy, the answers came.
Who’da thunk that the answer was just two miles down the road? Who’da thunk that all we had to do was tie one dream to another dream?
Because while our family was dreaming about Sap Bush Hollow, we’ve been joining our neighbors in dreaming about revitalizing our little hamlet…giving ourselves what we once had here: places to sit, places to come together, places to enjoy music, places to play.
And that’s when the Post Office, in the heart of the hamlet, came up for sale. Along with it came two apartments and the former firehouse. And we realized that, instead of buying more farmland, Sap Bush could build a retail store for our meats, along with a cafe, in the old firehouse. We could make the apartments available to our help. We could do more than just keep the farm going. We could help restore the heartbeat of our beloved West Fulton.
And so, instead of buying more farmland, we bought the building. We’ve been dreaming some more. We’ve been studying. We’ve been crunching numbers. And now, with winter here, we are taking up hammers and nails, knocking things down, putting things up, buying equipment, and getting ready to open in the spring.
Oh, and I’m working on a novel, too. But that’s something you already knew about, right?
And so, for the next few months, the blog will stop. I need to focus my energy on building these dreams. Like each year, I hope to return to you in the spring, with news of a new place where you can come visit, and maybe even sit for a spell over a cup of coffee.
But it will take a lot to get there. We don’t have all the money we need yet. We’re tapping every resource we can think of. Maybe you can help. To raise the funds we need to buy the coffee brewing equipment, we are selling mugs. For $100, we’ll put your name on a mug and keep it in our cafe. When you come see us, it will be waiting for you. And that money will go toward the grinders, the espresso machine, the tampers, and all the other brewing equipment that it will take to put the best cuppa Joe in the heart of nowhere. You can do it by clicking the donate button here.
It will be more than just a coffee cup. That cup is going to hang in a little cafe in a tiny town that time forgot. And each neighbor who walks in, dreaming about making our hamlet a place where our children can raise their children, they are going to see your mug on the wall. And they’re going to realize that they are not alone in their dreams. There are folks everywhere who want the same thing, who are cheering us on. And we’ll all be waiting to meet you when you come.
Thanks for dreaming with me this year. And thanks for helping to build the cafe. See you in the spring!
Corbie Mitleid
And the Cafe will have its very own Resident Psychic when it gets going…who absolutely foretells this to be the most fabulous place in Schoharie County with the best coffee and grassfed good vibes…!
Ashley
Kudos to you! And here’s to focusing during the quiet winter on projects we cannot dream of giving to during the busy growing season. I read your book, Radical Homemakers, about 5 years ago and it changed my life. You are awesome!!! And an inspiration to us all!