Video cu istoria familiei

Our family’s story begins with Margaret and Thomas Hale, who bought a small apple farm outside Ashford in 1952. There were only twelve acres then, a weathered barn, and rows of old trees that needed patience. Thomas tended the orchard before sunrise, while Margaret kept the accounts, raised their three children—Helen, Robert, and James—and made cider and apple butter in the farmhouse kitchen. By the 1970s, Robert and his wife, Anne, had taken over Hale Orchard. They planted new varieties, repaired the barn, and opened a roadside stand along Mill Road. Their children grew up sorting apples after school, stacking crates, and welcoming neighbors who returned every harvest. Soon, autumn at the farm became more than work. It was where birthdays were celebrated, stories were repeated, and cousins learned the names of trees planted long before they were born. Today, the third generation cares for the orchard. Sarah manages the stand, Michael oversees the trees, and cousins who now live far from Ashford still come back each autumn. They bring their own children to pick apples, walk the same rows, and gather around the long table in the barn. The farm has changed, but what matters has not: the work shared, the welcome offered, and the promise that each generation will leave something growing for the next.