Family Farm

At long last, I'm returning to my journals of our trip back east last summer. This post is especially meaningful because it's about our visit to an ancestor's farm. I'll include a few more pictures than usual so the extended family can enjoy more of our history.

Monday, June 25^th, 2012

We crossed the Champlain Lake on a ferry that looked to be a normal size. Then three huge tour buses pulled up next to us and we were afraid they’d make us wait for the next boat. Imagine our surprise when they squeezed three buses, one semi truck, one van, and something like 18 cars onto one ferry. It’s a gray, drizzly day, but it was pretty to drift across the water, watching the little boats darting around us. Thankfully the big vehicles only blocked our view on one side.

When we were almost across, all of a sudden Mom says, “What are we waiting for?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re not moving.”

“We already crossed the whole lake, Mom. We’ve been moving.”

“You mean I missed the whole trip? I was reading the newspaper!”

Turns out the voyage was so smooth she’d somehow missed that we were moving. Ah the joys of long trips on little sleep. I know she’d been glancing out the window, but somehow thought the water moving was just the current.

"When I named the farm I could not think of anything which would express my feelings towards this particular spot on the earth’s surface more correctly than the phrase ‘Heart’s Delight’ and it certainly is my heart’s delight every time I am permitted to enjoy the beautiful things which the Creator has showered upon us with such a lavish hand... It is an expression of the great joy reflected to me by the farm and the beautiful country round about." ~William H. Miner

Our stop at Heart’s Delight Farm was amazing. Starting in 1903, William Miner built or renovated 300 buildings over the 15,000 acres in Chazy, NY (pronounced chay-zee). They raised and sold huge numbers of cattle, pigs, horses, chicken, corn, and celery. He was a brilliant man who had grown up a poor orphan but invented so many types of railway equipment that he became rich at a young age. The farm was run based on all the scientific knowledge and technology available at the time, and they were constantly researching and working to make things even more effective. They even built their own dams right on the farm to run electricity to the whole thing—the Miners had electricity before the governor did!

Mom’s family had passed down the story that we are direct descendants of William, but recently Mom had contacted the farm and discovered he didn’t have any children. It threw us for a loop and we realized we were actually cousins of him.

William Miner and his wife, Alice.

The farm has always been open to the public, even when it was first built. Today there is a little museum set up but they still farm it and raise horses. The horses were excited to see us and neighed to us the whole time we were there, and some sniffed me all over to see if I might have a treat hidden in a pocket somewhere.I also spotted some kitties curled up in chairs, which made me miss my Leika.

 It was amusing to see the above horse watching us out of a second-story window.

William used much of his fortune to help start schools.
This is the institute's bus that would go pick up students every morning.

Throughout the beautiful gardens and farm, there are garden stones or signs posted with poems or sayings that remind the reader to appreciate the beauty given us by the Creator.

It made us proud to see the efficient farm focused on not only technology and research, but on helping the community around it and on glorifying God.