The Long and Winding Lane

Winter 2021 We all know challenges and opportunities make life interesting, but it can be tough to know if you are making the right decision. After years of living pretty traditional lives, you know, college, careers, family, and being pretty conservative with our decision making, the opportunity to move onto the farm came out of the blue. We pondered quite a bit, wondering if taking the risk is worth it, and as it turns out, it was exactly what we needed. It’s not easy work, but it is very rewarding; plus, watching the sunset from the porch makes it all worth it.

Tackling such a large project as this one, it can be tough to know where to start. Is it the gross carpet upstairs? or the overgrown pasture? or cutting down all the dead trees? cleaning the pool? renovating the little house? The list went on and on for us. One night, sitting around the table, we decided to write down everything we could think of that needed to be done on an opened up cardboard box. Our favorite thing to do when we finish one of the projects on the list is crossing it off. Now of course, the list was no where near complete, and we often find ourselves writing things down just to cross them off.

Naming of the farm was one of the first things we accomplished. It was important to us that it had meaning from our past and reminded us of all the possibilities in our future. “Birch” comes from the name of the neighborhood we moved from. We lived there almost twenty years and it holds a very special place in our hearts, plus it’s where we practiced most of our home renovation skills. Ever since we first arrived on the farm, we referred to the long, winding driveway as the “lane.” Additionally, “lane” is symbolic of our path forward. We can’t wait to use this part of the website to showcase some of our greatest transformations and progress creating Birch Lane Farm NJ.

The lane…