Trumansburg retirees launch “dream hobby farm” with community exchange concept

Despite it being February, two Trumansburg residents are looking forward to sunny days, sowing seeds and attracting like-minded community members interested in bartering.

Chris Fontana and Cindy Linville, the new owners of a 5-acre farm in Trumansburg, are happily retired but busy with a collaborative project. The two purchased the farm last summer and are looking for local gardeners in a barter exchange.

“I’m physically challenged, so I’m thinking outside the box,” Fontana said of the farm, which has many facilities.

“Building community has always been our goal in retirement, so we’ve advertised work barter and have women coming from around the U.S. to build a no-till ‘lasagna’ style garden,” she said. “Now, I’m taking the next step and looking for a local gardener or two.”

For the uninformed, lasagna gardening may cultivate images of carb-filled pasta. However, it’s a relatively simple style of gardening where kitchen waste, straw and newspapers are morphed into healthy compost.

The two retirees also have a greenhouse and are procuring seeds from Wells Seed Exchange. The program, which is run by the Wells College Library and the Center for Sustainability and the Environment, provides an exchange cabinet stocked with hundreds of free packets of vegetable, herb and flower seeds donated by seed companies.

Fontana said she is pretty hands-off regarding what’s grown, leaving that up to the future gardeners they find, sharing that the farm has established flowers, rhubarb, asparagus and herbs. She did reveal that they are planting peach, apple and blueberry bushes in the hopes of leaving a “fruit legacy” for her young grandson.

However, planting seeds is only a small part of their future farm endeavors.

“The idea is that many projects take off simultaneously,” said Fontana. “The mindset was build it and they will come — and it’s working!”

Fontana fondly recalls crossing paths with a young man, Robert Kuhar, whom she tutored 20 years ago. Kuhar, who runs Idiot Brothers, a Trumansburg-based hand-crafted cidery with his brother, Richard, was on a mission to make cider.

In a creative exchange, the two were able to assist one another: crab apples for bartered tree pruning. 

“He built a walk-in cooler in the barn from an old pool and air-conditioning unit and proceeded to collect and press enough apples for 500 bottles of (hopefully, it’s not ready yet) hard cider,” said Fontana, who added that Robert has been saving seeds from wild apples in the hopes of finding the perfect strain worth cultivating for cider.

Fontana and Linville have also teamed up with another local, a well-known foodie, who is assisting the owners in launching a farm-based bakery to expand their offerings.

“The baking I’m hoping to leave in the competent hands of Katy Walker, who has a reputation for food offerings that is widely known throughout Tompkins County,” Fontana shared.

Plans are also in the works to launch unique Airbnb offerings, and Fontana says they plan to set up glamping tents, a bunkhouse and a midcentury modern apartment.

Fontana provided a preview of what to expect from the farm-stay experiences, with no detail overlooked and a vibe reminiscent of days gone by. It makes sense, given that Fontana, who was born and raised in Ithaca, has always had a passion for hospitality and attended Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration.

“The glamping tents are themed after the popularity of the show ‘Yellowstone,’ with Pendleton wool blankets, lanterns and old-fashion wash basins,” said Fontana. “The bunk house is the same, individual bunks and lockers with an old west theme. The Coop is going to be a refurbished chicken coop surrounded by actual foraging chickens, and the more luxurious house apartment is decorated in a midcentury modern motif.”

The outdoor facilities will share the barn bathroom and kitchen, as well as the barn poker room and rec room, which features a record player, cathode-ray television and VCR, and the complete collection of Louis L’Amour books.

While hosting guests will help generate funds for the farm’s operating expenses, Fontana and Linville are still interested in creative exchanges with community members.

“The fun stuff we can barter for,” Fontana said. “We still want to barter for someone to maintain chickens in our beautiful coop in exchange for eggs, a construction whiz to build our farm wagon into a shepherd wagon to be used as an Airbnb, and general labor to help around the farm in exchange for holiday accommodations.”

It may be hard to believe, but these projects and goals may not have come to fruition if not for a couple of librarians. 

Fontana and Linville had spent years looking for a property that provided both space and opportunities for community living. Fontana was initially dismissive of the property because it lacked municipal water, which was a must-have for her when house hunting. 

She was quickly defeated, however, when Linville, a retired elementary school media specialist from Newfield Elementary School, and her daughter, a librarian, learned who once owned the land.

“Once [they] realized the property had belonged to Ruth Stiles Kahn, author of the Newbery Award-winning ‘My Father’s Dragon,’ I was outvoted and we toured the property,” she recalled.

They appeared to have guided her in the right direction, as Fontana described seeing the property as “love at first sight.”

“The property’s structures are close to 150 years old and wonderfully preserved, right down to our three-hole outhouse. My handyman, who I brought to check out the structures, proclaimed, ‘This is Narnia’ – and it is,” she said. 

While both love their farm, they’re also equally fond of Trumansburg and being close to family. 

“We’ve worn lots of hats since retiring eight years ago, including being professional pet sitters,” said Fontana. “We both love the area and knew we wanted to be near Trumansburg as my daughter Cady, the librarian at TCPL Makerspace, and her husband, Cap, a baker at Wide Awake Bakery [in] Trumansburg, live near there with our new grandson, Howdy.”

As the locals look forward to everything they have planned this year, they remain flexible as they explore the interest and temperature of a barter economy in our current modern times. 

“We already have thrown a lot at the wall and are waiting to see what sticks before we decide what to nurture,” said Fontana.

She described it as attempting to strike a balance between the old-school hippy vibe and earning enough money to pay the farm’s sizable taxes, but perhaps most importantly, she is looking forward to having fun and creating a lasting farm for her grandson to grow up on.

“Trumansburg is such a destination hotspot that I’ve no doubt that we will continue to get the right folks,” said Fontana. “We’ve been blessed to be put in the position to have a true hobby farm.”

To learn more about collaborating with Fontana and Linville, interested participants can e-mail caf39@cornell.edu. 

Trumansburg Connection appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Please send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com