What We Do
Hawkridge Homestead is a small heritage farm dedicated to sustainable and organic farming practices. We’re passionate about real food that’s made with love and nourishes both our bodies and the environment.
From our fresh veggies and grass-fed beef, to our free-range organic eggs and preserves made from our harvests, Hawkridge Homestead offers only quality artisanal handmade and homegrown products that we’d want to eat and use. That means absolutely no hormones, no antibiotics, no preservatives, certified organic feeds, heritage breeds, heirloom seeds, and organic and local ingredients. It’s slow, biodiverse food, made by people who love what they do as much as they love the land and the animals that support our thriving ecosystem.
We presently raise:
- Nigerian Dwarf goats, breeding for dairy lines
- Belted Galloway and Speckle Park cattle
- Heritage breed turkeys
- Heritage breed chickens
- Guinea fowl
- Canadian horses
We presently grow:
- Over 400 varieties of edible, medicinal, and ornamental heirloom fruits, vegetables, and plants
- Organic grass and alfalfa hays
The History
Purchased by the Sweetman family in 1995, what is now Hawkridge Homestead is a sacred piece of organic land with rich and deep roots, literally and metaphorically. The magnificent oak tree that towers on the front lawn is just shy of 400 years old.
Originally known as Hawkridge Farm, presumably named after the numerous red-tailed hawks that fly over this limestone ridge, our heritage farmhouse was built in 1848. Its interior has undergone much-needed facelifts over the years, but the original floorboards, bedrock basement, and newspaper-insulated walls still show its tremendous character.
Our historic bank barn is a beautiful marvel of construction from a bygone era, with not a single nail holding its 50+ feet hayloft beams together, all with wood from trees that would have been felled on the property. Its floor was poured in cement in 1929, and we’re not sure just how long it was standing before that investment was made. Its 3-foot thick limestone walls are from stones found on the property. Our barn and its paddocks have been home to just about every kind of farm animal we can imagine, and definitely various wild creatures, too, including rare and threatened species of owls. We know it was used for dairy cattle likely in the 1950s-1960s, and it has been home to many horses, sheep, and even a donkey, although pigs were kept in a separate piggery near the barn which now houses our Nigerian Dwarf goats.
The gardens, hayfield, and hardwood forest are a marvel in every season, and provide critical habitat for a deer, migrating birds, and many other species. There are many trees over 200 years old throughout the woods.
Hand-tinted photograph of the farm, 1913, from the diary of Thomas Love (1894- 1919). Courtesy of nephew, James Love, also a former resident of our farm.
A similar perspective almost 100 years later missing much of the drystone wall, 2009. Photo by Alexander Itenson, who lived here from 2003-2015.
