Holiday Brook Farm is located in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. It currently encompasses some 1300 acres of open fields, forest and pasture. As you drive along Rt.9 coming from Northampton to Pittsfield, the farm stretches out on both sides of the road as you come down the hill from Windsor into Dalton.
The farm produces hay, compost, maple syrup and firewood. Also on-site is an organic vegetable CSA and farmstand, horse boarding and lessons, and a daffodil bulb & fern production operation.
In 2007, Desiree & Jesse Roberston-DuBois were hired as farm managers to synergize the farm’s existing operations and diversify into new ventures including opening a farm-stand, pastured and grass-fed meats and expanding the vegetable operations. In 2008, we applied for and got a Farm Viability Grant to help with the expansion and diversification of some of the farm’s ventures. So far, there are plans in the works for a larger CSA distribution facility, commercial kitchen and classroom and a new livestock barn with improved fencing. The pastured pork operation has grown to include four sows and the first of the grass-fed beef will go to market in the fall of 2008. The first of the beef breeding stock has arrived and is happily eating grass around the farm.
The Farm’s Name: The farmers are always being asked about how the farm got its name, and while there is a long and complicated history behind the farm and its land(the details of which, for you history buffs are intricately laid out on our website at www.holidayfarm.com/history) the short answer is that in 1899 the part of the farm where the office and main barn now stand there used to be a farmhouse owned by Miss Mary Crane. Miss Crane used to bring underpriviledged children from New York City to ‘holiday’ for six weeks in the rural Berkshire countryside in a sort of precursor to today’s Fresh Air Fund. Upon her marriage, Mary sold the farm to her brother Federick G. Crane. Today the farm is still owned and operated by the descendents of Frederick Crane.
In 2008 it was decided that the name of the farm would be changed to Holiday Brook (the stream that flows through its heart) in order to emphasize the connection between the farm and the natural landscape it encompasses.
Faces of the Farm:
Dicken Crane, head honcho
Jesse & Desiree Robertson-DuBois, managers
John Bye & Peg Cowen, CSA founders & growers
Gib, Morgan & Elspeth, farm kids
