Eliza and Bart both have a long history with Kinne Brook Farm.  Eliza moved here in 1981 with her parents and two siblings, and spent many hours of her childhood haying, riding on and driving tractors, mucking out stalls, and quietly observing cows and chickens.  Ultimately, however, she had to leave the farm to make her way in the world, and ended up living in Boston, out West for a little while, in the Pioneer Valley, back in Boston for 10 more years.  But some of the transitions involved living back at the farm for short periods, and she always felt growing up here in Western Massachusetts, on the farm, defined her life.

Bart grew up in Williamsburg, just 15 miles down the road.  His first exposure to the farm was when he was about 10 years old; his parents, newly friends with Eliza’s, used to bring him to the annual farm Christmas party.  He found the parties boring, and used to wait for the other boys his age to come so they could go out and play in the hay loft.  He later worked at the farm as a teenager helping the farmer he worked for (who later became the minister that married Eliza and Bart!), who was in turn helping out Eliza’s father with haying.  Bart says he doesn’t remember the time Eliza (the older woman!) gave him a ride home at the end of a long day of work.  He too grew up, moved to Chicago, then out West, then back to Williamsburg.

When Bart and Eliza met as adults, they had both just bought houses in Easthampton and were living in their childhood homes while they completed work on their new homes.  When they started living together, it was at the Farm, but only for a few months, until one of the houses was habitable.  For the next few years, they came up to Worthington to visit, and ultimately held their wedding reception at Eliza’s mother’s new house, across the road.  Three years later they bought the farm from Toni, and have been working together ever since to make it a sustainable, healthy, and happy home for their children, Augustus and Charlotte.