Basic Information
Date of Trip: 10/02/2021 – 10/03/2021
Location: Durham, NY
Where we stayed: The Gifford
Hull-O Farms is a living farm. It was started by John and Sally Hull in 1786 and is still operational today, seven generations later, by Frank and Sherry Hull and their sons. The original house, built in 1810, is still home to the Hull family. The farm grows forage for its own livestock, which includes including cows, claves, pigs, goats, sheep, bunnies, kittens, chickens, deer, and ducks, and provides feed for wildlife, including white-tailed deer and wild turkey.
The farm offers farm tours where you can learn about the daily farm operations, meet and feed the farm animals, and participate in the farming activities, such as milking cows, feeding the animals, and gathering freshly laid eggs. The farm also offers farm stay vacations by renting out one of the houses on the property. When we stayed at the farm, there were three houses for rent but, currently, the website only offer two houses for rent. In addition to the farm tours, the vacation package includes hay rides on the tractor, bonfire and S’mores, and fishing.
While visiting the farm, you can purchase farm products such as eggs, milk, meat, jams and preserves, and pancake mix.
Our Experience
This is my second post with my Sheldon. However, it was so exciting that I wanted to share it, especially for my friends with kids.
My ex-husband’s cousins who have kids approximately my daughter’s age invited us to accompany them on this fun weekend get-a-away. We were three families – 5 adults and 7 kids, occupying two of the farm houses.
The other two families arrived Friday evening while we arrived Saturday morning. My first observation was no Internet so complete disconnection from reality! I could not even send out a text message to Sheldon, let alone make a phone call. The WIFI was not operational so welcome to a real country experience.
Saturday we met the animals, observed a very pregnant mama pig get ready to give birth, another mama pig nursing her piglets, bottle-fed baby calves, picked fallen apples from the farm trees to feed to the deer, fed hay to the cows, and took hay rides. Saturday night we have a bon-fire with S’mores while the farmer’s son played the guitar. We also went fishing.
Sunday morning we went to the chicken coop to lift the chickens off their eggs and pick the eggs. We spent more time feeding the animals and drove to a quick hike near the farm.
Unfortunately, the heavens decided to send rain our way and we had to cut the hike short. After lunch, we headed back to our urban life.
