Our Story

Harrisdale Farmstead is a 6-acre tract that includes the 1921 farmhouse, the 1920 barn and other farm buildings, and the farm windbreak. It is surrounded on three sides by the Harris farmland. Since Ardy and Gil acquired the place in 2004, we have made some improvements to the house, repaired and re-roofed the barn, had the decaying corn crib and an old barn taken down, and built a new garage and workshop.

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In 2014, we “retired” to Harrisdale after spending 36 years at Cornell University. Starting in 2015 we planted about two acres of former cattle lots to a wide variety of fruit and nut trees and to various food-producing bushes and brambles. We have also been growing annual vegetables in the alleyways between the rows of trees and using row covers and plastic covering on hoops to extend our growing season. In 2017 we acquired sheep for providing meat to sell, for vegetation management, and for improving our soil fertility. During the grazing season, we rotate the sheep through our farmstead and two others, using portable electric fencing to make small areas (paddocks) in which the sheep eat down the vegetation before being moved to fresh forage in the next paddock.