Here at Stone Quarry House we believe our impact on the planet starts at home, and that living in harmony with the earth is synonymous with living well. So we started organic homesteading over a decade ago and haven’t looked back.

We harvest from our 3 organic gardens and organic fruit orchard, as well as supporting many local farmers with bulk purchases, visits to the farmers’ markets, and CSA shares. We pickle, can, ferment, freeze, and culture all summer, stocking up for the long winter months. The fall is a great time to preserve tomatoes as salsa, spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, and bruschetta. We’ve made blackberry jam and grape jelly and we aim to go into winter with enough grape juice that we won’t need any storebought juices.  We’ve frozen blueberries, strawberries, and pawpaws for tropical tasting smoothies in midwinter.  Pesto will bring that summer flavor to dinner, too.   Let us know if you are curious about it; there is usually something interesting happening in the kitchen!

We keep our own flock of chickens, feed them the highest quality organic feed, and allow them to free range over the property all day, increasing the nutritional variety of their diet and keeping down unwanted pests. We gratefully collect the eggs, perfect for making our own mayonnaise, ice-cream, and breakfast.

We purchase organic, locally-grown wheat berries, and grind our own flour. Wheat berries keep for a wonderfully long time, and grinding only what we needs means our flour is always incredibly fresh.  Local field corn can be nixtimalized (soaked in pickling lime and rinsed) to make healthy hominy, tortillas and corn chips, which go nicely with the salsa we put up each fall.

With milk from our local raw milk collective we have made cheeses, butter, ricotta, buttermilk, and other cultured products. Nancy is an experienced cheese maker and has offered private classes on artisinal cheese making from raw milk. She also offers the occasional pickling class.