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Celebrating over 15 years of operation!

How It All Began

Bellarose farm was founded in the year 2008 when our family, eager to increase our land base to support our growing collection of animals and increasing desire for self-sufficiency, purchased a large parcel of land located on the Nyes Corner Road in our hometown of Saint Albans, ME. Once a 400-acre dairy farm belonging to the Nye family, all that remained was a hand dug well, some miscellaneous farm and household items from the past, and rusty old square headed nails as numerous as the stars in the heavens that spontaneously erupt from the ground everywhere like weeds. All of the original buildings had fallen victim to collapse or fire and the land itself had remained barely touched for over twenty years. With a substantial amount of work to be done, we began our journey to reclaim an American family farm that had been lost to time and find a way to honor its history and the families that came before us while creating something uniquely ours. 

The black and white photo shown on the left is an aerial view of the farm in 1952 before the original buildings were lost. At that time approximately 25 acres of the land remained as open fields. The color photo  on the right was taken in  the year 2007. One year prior to our purchase of the land. Only two small fields remained.

BELLAROSE FARMHOUSE

How a Decade and a Half of Hard Work Turned our Dream Into Reality

Even though we began with ambitious goals and insanely high hopes, we would have never imagined all of those years ago that we would be where we are today.  From the very beginning we were met with struggle after struggle. The first big decision we made was to prepare the seasonal home currently located on the property for winter as it was never intended for habitation during the cold months. The decision was then made to heat the poorly insulated home with firewood alone. Winter came fast that year, and despite our best efforts we were not prepared.   We had never had to rely on firewood as a sole source of heat or had to wear insulated snow suits and winter hats to bed or had the water in our pipes and toilet bowl freeze repeatedly until the winter of 2008 - 2009. Year after year we were met with new hardships and year after year, we made the decision to continue and not give in to the difficulties. Now, over fifteen years later we look back at those times and we are actually grateful. We can now look back on the struggles and find comedic relief in the naivety of our former selves that thought "farm life" would be easy. The hardships created opportunities to learn and gave us the resilience we would need for the next obstacle. Each hurdle shaped who we are as people, our perception of ourselves, and gave us the confidence learn, and problem solve under pressure. Now we gather around our table and tell stories such as "Remember that year we almost froze to death?" or "Remember when our cows all got struck by lightning?"  or the classic "Remember when we almost broke down and gave up?" to which is responded "which time are you referring to?". As we stare down the future, and a new generation joins our family, we feel blessed for all that we have been given to care for and we hope to muscle through the insanity with the hope of passing on our love for this land to our children so that the dreams can continue.

Meet The Farmers

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Taylor

While Taylor keeps herself busy with full time employment working and vlogging her life as a dairy farmer, she is also our on-farm cattle and equipment consultant and jack of all trades.

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"Don't be afraid to try new things"

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Shania

The livestock manager and main equipment operator for our haying operation, I also created Woodland Wildflowers and designed this website. If there was a crazy idea around here, I probably had a hand in it.

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"Never stop growing"

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Cheryl

Mother to Taylor and Shania, Cheryl was the driving force behind the creation of Bellarose Farm and continues to be the creator of new ideas. Though there was a time you would not have caught her in a barn she has embraced the farm and instilled in her daughters the value of a good work ethic and encouraged us to follow our dreams. 

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"You can learn to do anything if you just put your mind to it"

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