A brief history of our farm~
Hokum Rock Farm was established in the summer of 1973 by proprietor Stephen Spear and his parents Chet and Selma. Chet was a botanist and a college professor in Connecticut. Steve was a college student in Utah, studying literature, and later agriculture, at UMass, Amherst. Selma, a homemaker, was their guiding force. Chet had purchased the property in the 1940's, a summer cottage on eleven acres of land.
The family planted vegetables and strawberries and began operating a small farm stand by the homestead every summer. Before long they had built a barn. They augmented their crop with fresh fruit and vegetables from the Boston market every morning.
In 1983, Steve started working for the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service as a conservation specialist, a position he holds to this day. Back at the farm, now on his own, he narrowed his focus to blueberries.
Over the years he expanded his father's original acreage to eighteen, land that is now under conservation protection. Steve has had many helpers at the farm over the years, from Irish students and Tibetan refugees, to locals and wash ashores, to whom he is entirely grateful, especially Janice and Audrey who arrived (at the farm) in 2001, and stayed. Life is good.
We are proud to be part of the farming community and honored that a trip to our farm has become a summer tradition for many families over several generations now. The farm we imagined so long ago and worked so hard to create became a reality. How can it get any better than to bring happiness to so many and to feed the world with our beautiful little blueberries.
Happy the man (& woman), whose wish and care, A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe their native air, In their own ground.
Alexander Pope, "Ode on Solitude"
The family planted vegetables and strawberries and began operating a small farm stand by the homestead every summer. Before long they had built a barn. They augmented their crop with fresh fruit and vegetables from the Boston market every morning.
In 1983, Steve started working for the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service as a conservation specialist, a position he holds to this day. Back at the farm, now on his own, he narrowed his focus to blueberries.
Over the years he expanded his father's original acreage to eighteen, land that is now under conservation protection. Steve has had many helpers at the farm over the years, from Irish students and Tibetan refugees, to locals and wash ashores, to whom he is entirely grateful, especially Janice and Audrey who arrived (at the farm) in 2001, and stayed. Life is good.
We are proud to be part of the farming community and honored that a trip to our farm has become a summer tradition for many families over several generations now. The farm we imagined so long ago and worked so hard to create became a reality. How can it get any better than to bring happiness to so many and to feed the world with our beautiful little blueberries.
Happy the man (& woman), whose wish and care, A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe their native air, In their own ground.
Alexander Pope, "Ode on Solitude"
