It started with the windowpane . Until Robin and Allen Cockerline replaced the windows in their newly purchased farmhouse , the station looked bleak , at best . In fact , before the new bank of window , only the Cockerlines were capable to see their diamond in the rough .
To everyone else , their handyman ’s special had all the stylemark of a snag - down , but the Cockerlines were no strangers to do - it - yourself renovation or hard work . On the surface , you might not call up that a couple of art students like them would be equipped for the land life and all the articulatio cubiti stain it mean ; however , their aesthetic breeding was the intrinsical ingredient that made their land endeavors fly .
Farming DreamsAllen always knew that farming was his first dear .
“ It was the 1970s , and the Back - to - the - Land Movement was very likeable , ” Robin recalls . Allen had farmed throughout his high-pitched - school career and had chat up with farming school . “ He used to advert out with the old farmers , soaking it in . ”
The couple met at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly , Mass. , and though Robin ’s chief dream did n’t directly bespeak to land , she was game to take the back - to - land road . Logistics clinched the tidy sum .
“ When we realized that we ’d have to move to the city if we wanted to realize a living as creative person , we made our decision , ” Robin says . They opted for the country life .
They bought a farmhouse 5 naut mi down the route from their previous home with muckle of fender time before move - in would be necessary , lie with that they would be doing all the farmhouse renovation figure out themselves . Meanwhile , Allen had turned from dairying tobeef , buy fresh training bloodline of his own as he sold off his employer ’s previous ruck . The moment he convert , job look at an upswing , giving the duet the chance to pay off their debt and grease one’s palms the farmhouse with 2 Accho of adjoining land they named Whippoorwill Farm — a fraction of the 450 acres that Allen farm .
With the surrounding acreage in conservation relief , the arrangement could n’t have been better . Still , the farmhouse required more than just a heavy dose of elbow grease : Despite grounds that someone had recently put a considerable amount of work into the social organisation with raw ceilings , a kitchen backsplash and countertops , it had been a temporary abode for a foresightful prison term . “ It was years and years of ‘ making do , ’ ” Robin explicate . Minor electrical and bathymetry repairs , some of which were cosmetic , were accomplished by Allen , who did all of the renovations himself .
This clause originally seem in the November / December 2011 issue ofHobby Farm Home .
