North American Cashmeres, junior apprentice program among Hulse Hill's treasures

Christine McBrearty-Hulse takes a moment to check in with one of her farm's North American Cashmere Goats

The chickens, Christine McBrearty-Hulse said, were “the gateway drug to farming” when she thought it would be fun to raise a few. Hulse Hill Farm, on Route 28 midway between Cooperstown and Fly Creek, still has chickens, but also pigs, barn cats, a rabbit, and goats of various age gathered in spacious fenced-in fields, with the farm’s North American Cashmere goat herd at the core of her farm products.

“It’s a true homestead farm experience,” she told The Freeman’s Journal / Hometown Oneonta on a tour of the farm, which includes a bed-and-breakfast (including a well-appointed ‘tiny home’), vegetable gardens, and farm stand with products from the farm and local artisans. “We looked at our options and took old ideas from farming and 4-H and it turned into all this.”

Along with the b-and-b, Hulse Hill offers at-the-farm events, gearing up for an April 16 Make-a-Posey Fiber Pin workshop, farm tours on April weekends, and two projects about which Christine is excited – a ‘native paw paw