Nov 24

2015

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I ♥ Your Style: Laura Ferrara

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For the last two years, every time I came across a photo of Laura Ferrara and her amazing farm Westwind Orchard in upstate New York, I have been so overwhelmed by what she’s accomplished that I have to look away. I first spotted photos of her farm-based pizza restaurant on Instagram, and then I noticed her homemade jam and honey with its perfectly designed packaging on Pinterest, and then Garance Doré was blogging about apple picking at Westwind and EyeSwoon was hosting a harvest supper there, and the whole thing just made me so impressed and inspired but also intimidated and terribly inferior. That was when I decided I had to avert my eyes. How on Earth did she manage to maintain her day job as a fashion editor, while her husband maintained his job as a photographer, and raise a child, and run this amazing farm with all these products and services and also have it open to the public?!? Just when I was starting to feel settled into my quiet, happy life on the farm and getting the feeling that I was finding a balance between work and pleasure and family and my occasional visits to NYC and my writing and my photography, Laura comes along and suddenly I feel that I am accomplishing absolutely nothing at all!!

Isn’t it awful how we beat ourselves up in this way?

Well, this little story I was telling myself about how she was doing everything and I was doing nothing lost some of its power when I found out that they actually bought their farm nearly 15 years ago. Somehow that made everything more relatable and achievable. Not that I see what they have as something I want for myself exactly, but it is my dream to resurrect the productivity of the farm. There are empty fields and abandoned barns dating back to 1860 that have long lost their purpose, and my ultimate goal for living here is to find a reason to bring them back to life. I don’t know what that actually means yet, but I am toying with many ideas, and have given myself until Zach is at boarding school a year and half from now to figure out what the vision and the goal is and to start to slowly work towards it. In the meantime, I am trying out every farm activity possible to identify what I most enjoy doing and how I would like to best use my time. And I am also envying Laura and holding her on a pedestal and admiring her for setting the bar very, very high. ..

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Nov 12

2015

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Life on the Farm: A Morning Walk

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The old drive leading from our farmyard to my mother-in-law’s house.

This morning I went on a walk. I wasn’t planning to, but I was all caffeinated up and ready to get going in my day, but I had 40 more minutes before I actually needed to get in my car and drive off to my first appointment. I could have caught up on emails, but then I looked outside and the sky was blue and cloudless. In England, especially in the autumn, this is rare. Even if there are not clouds, there is usually fog in the mornings this time of year. And so I was compelled to go outside. I have a busy day – lots of errands locally and then I’m headed up to London later – and as soon as I got outside I felt grateful for the few extra moments to do something purely pleasurable before the obligations that lay ahead. ..

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Oct 30

2015

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Farm Food: Our New Juice Press!

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My very first turn of the juice press. Shirt by Isabel Marant, trousers by TopShop, boots by Grenson.

Every autumn when I was a child, my family would chose a Saturday to pile in the car and drive at least an hour north from our home in Westchester to pick apples and buy cider. We always returned with huge bags of tangy, crisp fruit far better than anything you could buy in the supermarket. We ate as many as we could and then my mom would make the rest into apple sauce.The years of memories are hard to differentiate in my head – they have all melted together into one collection of happy fruit-picking nostalgia.

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This tree has the sweetest apples.

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A collection of apples from various trees in the orchard. I tend to prefer a mix of varieties and flavours.

When we moved to England, and I found myself surrounded by more apples than you could possibly pick come September, the abundance quickly weighed heavily upon me. Yes we picked them. And I made a pie or a crumble, and then as much apple sauce as I could possibly make. But that didn’t even touch the surface of making the most of our apple supply. ..

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Nov 05

2013

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Life on the Farm: Kitchen Garden Abundance

Last year I just kind of passively watched as the abundance of farm produce came and went with the summer and autumn seasons. I was too distracted by the move, settling the kids into school, finding a routine for myself, and updating our home to engage in any significant way with the vegetable garden or any of the trees – pear, apple, quince, elderflower, fig, blackberries – that the farm offered up. Granted, we didn’t actually have our own vegetable garden last year but on the farm there are two large ones maintained by other family members that I am always welcome to take from...

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Sep 26

2013

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Life on the Farm: Another September

In June of 2012, I announced to the world, or at least the fashion world, that I was taking a year off to go live on a farm in rural England. So here we are at the end of September 2013, and here I am. Still. People ask me from time to time when I am coming back or what my future plans are, and so I thought I’d let you all know what I’m up to.

For starters, I love it here. For more reasons than I can explain. But the main ones are the following: I have never been more clear about who I am and what is important to me...

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