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Sunny Acres Farm

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United States
Athens, NY
Sunny Acres Farm

A six-generation family farm, established in 1897, located in New York's scenic Hudson Valley.

The farm has been in our family since 1897, and has evolved through the years from a dairy and market crop farm in its early years to a beef and dairy goat farm during the 1970s, '80s and '90s. For a brief time, we operated the farm primarily as a market hay farm, but found that we truly missed being involved with raising animals, especially goats! In 2002, we purchased our first two Boer doelings

, and welcomed their kids in January 2003...and so it goes! In 2010 and 2011, we expanded from Boer and Boer-cross goats with the addition of Kikos to our herd.

08/23/2026

No mystery meat here! 100% locally produced goat. No hormones or antibiotics, just green grass and sunshine. The animals here live a good life grazing in the regeneratively managed pastures with organic minerals and sea salt. Processed humanly in a USDA inspected facility in Connecticut. The money you pay for the meat stays in the local community and not some foreign nation. Many people have never tried eating goat, but worldwide it is one of the leading sources of protein. It is a mild flavored meat that is very nutritious and at the same time low in fat. A real powerhouse of nutrition. We have a good supply of both ground and boneless stew. Stop by and get some to try!

08/14/2026

We have a volunteer squash plant in the garden that is very prolific. It came up from seed that over wintered in the garden and it is actually very tasty as long as I pick them before they turn into caveman clubs. These were discovered today when I was working in the garden and they were designated as treats for the hens. I wasn’t quite quick enough to get the phone out as they hit the ground but you can get a sense that the hens didn’t hesitate to attack! They absolutely love stuff from the garden and when I was doing the evening chores all they left was the stems.

08/05/2026

This is a very pretty flower. It is called knapweed and it originally came from Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Whether it came here intentionally or by accident I don’t know. The bees like it and as far as the goats are concerned they will eat the buds and the flowers and strip some of the leaves, but there is a lot left behind when they move to the next paddock. The biggest issue with this plant is that it spreads like wildfire and crowds out the desirable plants in any area that it takes over! If diversity is a key part of Holistic management and regenerative agriculture this plant is a huge problem because it will create a monoculture environment very quickly. So for us to try to break this cycle we will graze this area hard then do some tillage and plant an 8 species cover crop that we will be able to graze later this fall and again in the spring. Fighting this plant will be very challenging to be able to restore the diversity that we had here for many years.

07/29/2026

This is insane! The other day the forecast was calling for 2 to 3 inches of rain from this storm. It started raining early yesterday afternoon and by chore time we were under an inch of rain. The rain pounded on the roof all night and I checked the rain gauge when I finished the morning chores at 9:30 and we have had 7.52 inches so far! Lots of water in the fields along the RR tracks which is still rising as I write this. But on the plus side it’s not windy and we are not facing a tornado threat! Won’t have to water the garden anytime soon!

07/19/2026

What a beautiful day today! Nice breeze, warm sunshine and no humidity! Perfect day for being out in one of our pastures moving portable fences to the next pasture. The goats spent a month on this area with one day paddocks. The clover is growing back in the first section that was grazed and the butterflies are busy visiting the clover blossoms. I was lucky to be able to get a couple of pictures of a monarch butterfly and a swallowtail. I am seeing more monarchs this year than I have seen in the past few years. I guess they must have had a good winter in Mexico. I do let the milkweed grow back so they have a place to lay their eggs. Nice way to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon!

07/10/2026

The sound of morning in the pasture. What a great way to start the day!

06/12/2026

It’s a little after 7 this morning. I just walked back in the house and poured a cup of coffee. I was out in one of our pastures moving fences to set up the last 3 paddocks in this section of the pasture. No big deal! It’s much cooler now than in the evening on a hot summer day. But, what I want to talk about in this post is the movie that the Farmwife and I watched last evening. Groundswell is the third film in the KISS the Ground trilogy. Very interesting and relevant in this time. Regenerative Agriculture is a way to restore the health of our very precious soil that supports all of us! Well worth the time to watch this film. It’s on Amazon Prime. We here at Sunny Acres Farm are using these methods to provide healthy food for our community. We very much adhere to the principles of healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy animals and healthy people!
So this morning as I opened the gate for the goats to head out to the pasture, I know they will be eating a mix of healthy phytonutrient dense plants. This is the key to providing higher levels of omega 3 fatty acids in the meat they produce. Vital for our health! We now have a good supply of goat meat in the freezer and available for sale.
The picture is one of the willow cuttings that I planted this spring. Planting trees in our pastures is a part of farming regeneratively.

06/03/2026

The goats are a few seconds ahead of me this morning heading into the paddock for today. There is more than one hundred goats of all sizes in the paddock. I move the fence ahead each day so that they have a new meal in front of them each morning. When I was mowing the paths for the fences, the heads of the grasses were over my shoulders. Very thick and lush and we have never put fertilizer on this pasture. This is the result of using Adaptive Multi Paddock grazing practices. Some people would look at this after they leave and say that we are wasting too much grass. They do trample what they don’t eat, but that covers the soil and over time breaks down and feeds the soil microbes that then feed the plants and give us this tremendous sward of grass and legumes that then will feed the goats again in a few months after the grass has had a rest period and then regrows into a new multi paddock pasture.

05/21/2026

If a picture is worth a thousand words this video is priceless! This is the remnants of the round bale that was left behind when we took the feeder out last evening. Truly a fantastic playground for the crazy hooligans zooming around in the pen. Don’t you wish you had this much energy?

05/20/2026

The round bale is now eaten enough so that the hooligans can climb in! The feeder now has to be removed ASAP! Little goats climbing in and out can get a leg caught and we end up putting popsicle stick splints on broken legs. It has happened before, but I called for help and the Farmdaughter came right over and helped get the feeder out of the pen. But the core of the bale is still in place so to see how this plays out watch the video in my next post. 🤪

Address

433 FLATS Road
Athens, NY
12015

Telephone

+15189452745

Website

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