[itinerary | lodging] Livingston County is known for its vast expanses of beautiful farmland, and the area surrounding Conesus Lake is no exception. It’s one of the main reasons you choose to live here. Most, if not all, of the communities here are “right to farm” communities — meaning any private resident, whether living on a giant farm or on a suburban lot, has the right to grow crops or raise animals on their land. It’s a simple concept that encourages self-sustainability. And while you never lived on a farm yourself, you grew up in a rural area and remember fond trips to the farms of friends and family members — playing hide and seek in hay lofts, plucking ripe tomatoes off the vine, chasing chickens around the fields, even witnessing the birth of a baby donkey. Thomas Jefferson envisioned the new United States as an agrarian society, a utopia of pioneers and farmers providing for themselves and their communities by living off the fat of the land. While mass production and industrialization altered the nation’s landscape forever, pockets of agriculture have resisted this change for centuries.

Olde Silo Farm

But let’s be real. You were born alongside Apple’s Macintosh, not apple orchards. You graduated high school at the peak of the dot-com bubble, and you spent your college years playing in giant metropolitan playgrounds. You’re no farmer, but there are plenty of people around you who are. And it’s time to take advantage of the opportunities to shop local and to eat organic. For your Conesus Lake farm market tour, you want to try the best of different worlds: pick-your-own farms, roadside farm stands, and brick-and-mortar farm markets. You begin at Olde Silo Farm in the Town of Conesus, just a short drive down NY-15 from Conesus Lake.

Olde Silo Farm provides quite a variety from the bounty of its acres, with different berries available depending on the season. You manage to slide into the farm at the tail-end of strawberry season, overlapping with the annual raspberry crop. You head into the farm stand where you are greeted by a lovely family who provide you with the pint boxes for picking. The children watch you carefully as you load the little companion into her Radio Flyer wagon, like a Hollywood celebrity being escorted into her limousine. With its soft canopy, the wagon is the perfect vehicle for a hot, sunny day in the fields.

^{The princess’s chariot awaits}

Though the owners cautioned that the strawberry season is winding down, you’re pleased to find plenty of bright red berries hidden among the bushes. You pull the little one’s wagon up and down the rows of strawberries, as if pushing her in a shopping cart through the supermarket aisles. Instead of grabbing processed meats and genetically modified foreign produce off the shelves, you’re picking real organic berries right off the vine, practically in your backyard. You fill your pint boxes and sneak a couple tiny berries into the little one’s mouth before moving onto the raspberry patch.

^{Fresh picked organic strawberries; a view of the raspberry patch}

The raspberry patch is just as bountiful as the strawberries, even this early in the season. You give the little one a tart raspberry to try, and watching her facial expression change at the slightly sour taste compared to the sweet strawberries is the greatest delight. You love seeing her experience new tastes and flavors and sights and sounds. Every tiny interaction is a form of learning and growth for the little one. You’re building core memories with her while surrounded by the beauty of Conesus Lake.

With pint boxes filled, you roll the Radio Flyer back to Olde Silo’s farm stand to settle up. Four big pints overflowing with strawberries and raspberries would probably cost nearly $30 at the supermarket, but you’re happy to hand half that amount in cash to the owners. A little labor goes a long way in the supply chain.

Ricky Greene Memorial Park

And after a hot morning picking berries, you decide to take a little break on your tour and rest under the trees at Ricky Greene Memorial Park in Conesus. The park is quiet today, allowing you to stroll the grounds freely and comfortably while practicing walking with the little companion. Your travel companion recreates on the swing set while you check out the intriguing wooden play structures tucked away in the back of the park, practically in the woods. A bit advanced for your daughter at this age, but maybe in a couple years she’ll be ready. Heading back to the car, you snap a photo of the quaint little log cabin by the entrance — apparently moved there from its original location when it was built in 1816, now listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. Peeking through the window, you see evidence of historic artifacts and imagine there must be tours of the cabin. Something to explore on another day.

^{Scenes from Ricky Greene Memorial Park in Conesus, NY}

SaJe Family Farm

Doubling back up NY-15 and onto Bronson Hill Road, your set your sights on a farm stand you see regularly on your commutes north to Rochester and its eastern suburbs: SaJe Family Farm. A popular stand, you’re lucky to pull in unencumbered by the usual crowd. This gives you the time and space to snap a few photos and to plan out your grocery list carefully. It’s a big stand offering a variety of produce as well as popcorn, jams, and honey. The owners even provide details for connecting with them on social media and submitting payments via Venmo — a smart adaptation to the new technological world, though you still intend to pay with good old-fashioned cash.

^{SaJe Family Farm stand on Bronson Hill Road in East Avon, NY}

The stand is chock-full of an assortment of berries; pit fruit like apricots and soft, juicy peaches; giant tomatoes; cabbages; melons; squash; potatoes; red, yellow, and white sprouted onions; green beans; garlic bunches; and spicy and sweet peppers. The variety and quality of the fruits and vegetables definitely rivals the produce aisle of large chain stores. Pricing is either comparable if not cheaper, and even if it were a tad more expensive, you know you’d be getting high-quality product. Money spent at the farm stand directly benefits the local economy, too: according to FarmStandApp.com, while farmers might keep 15 to 20 cents of every dollar spent at a big supermarket, they retain 80 to 100% of what you put in their cash box. Storey’s in the Dirt further shares that for every $100 spent at small stands, $68 remains in the local economy versus $43 that would stay local when spending the same amount at a large chain. You would prefer to fund your neighbor’s new farm equipment or a nice vacation with his family rather than Danny Wegmans’ fourth vacation home.

^{Fresh local apricots, peaches, tomatoes, blackberries, and blueberries at Saje Family Farm stand}

Your travel companion is the best shopper in the family, so you leave the grocery list up to her (with a modest request for multiple packs of berries). She bags a pint of giant tomatoes, a cabbage, your berries, soft and sweet peaches, and green beans for this week’s dinner. You make sure to narrate to the little one what you are doing, which fruits and veggies are which, what their colors and shapes are. She’s like a little organic Johnny Five from Short Circuit: she craves input just as much as you crave a delicious handful of blackberries.

^{View of Saje Family Farm; posing with the little companion; social media links and farm pricing}

Six Sprouts Farm Market

The last stop on your farm market tour is close by, at the major crossroads of East Avon. A relatively new small business in the area, you’ve been observing Six Sprouts Farm Market’s social media presence for some time now and feel a kinship with the owners. It can be hard to plant the roots of a new business in the community, as you’ve learned yourself over the past three years. But they’ve hit the ground running, and the results speak for themselves. As you pull up to the market, you see several cars out front, plus a motorcyclist reclining in the patio enjoying a sandwich and some ice cream. It’s good advertising on its own.

^{Six Sprouts Farm Market is conveniently located on the corner of 15 and 5 & 20 in East Avon, NY}

You scoop the little one from her car seat and head inside. There are coolers to the right and on the opposite wall for cold cakes and pies, milk, eggs, and beverages. To the left are shelves of local dry goods such as sauces, baking mixes, and condiments. The large counter in the middle hosts the day’s fresh bakery items, artisan brewed beverages, and ice cream, while around the corner to the right is a meeting space, community bulletin board, and local artwork on sale. This place absolutely screams local.

^{Fresh baked goods from Golden Harvest Cafe available daily + Original watercolors by local artist Erika Jess}

It’s clear the bakery display is relatively empty now at the end of the day, so you ask the girl behind the counter if you should have come earlier for bakery treats.

“That’s right,” she chuckles, “But tomorrow is donut day so we’ll have fresh donuts ready then.”

“Is donut day always on a Thursday?” you ask, your mouth already watering at the thought of sweet puffy donuts.

“Thursdays and Saturdays,” she confirms, and gestures behind her at a counter full of flat bakery boxes. “Those are the donuts ready for tomorrow.”

You take note of the donut schedule, and most likely will remember it better than you remember your own daughter’s pediatrician appointments. Your travel companion is more interested in the last slice of an apple cake, as well as a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich which she asks to start eating while you continue to shop. The shop girl is happy to oblige. You eye a can of fancy Italian soda in the cooler, and together with the ice cream sandwich and the apple cake, you finalize your order with a scoop of “All the Good Stuff” — a concoction of vanilla ice cream containing brownie, Oreo, caramel, cookie dough, and fudge.

^{“All the Good Stuff” by Yummies Ice Cream + Chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches}

You and your companions settle into a table on the patio to enjoy your treats. The motorcyclist gets up to depart just as a family with a baby in a car seat and a little girl just slightly older than yours walks up. Your little companion screeches in delight at the sight of another little girl, and the grown-ups chuckle. There’s a new common ground you’ve reached since your daughter was born — a silent language passed between parents, an understanding of the stresses and joys of facing the world with a tiny person next to you. Your travel companion grins, and you both exchange a look that communicates your favorite mantra: Hang in there.

Living on Conesus Lake means you can enjoy the perks of farm country anytime you want. And to supplement today’s farm market tour, you decide to take advantage of the “right to farm” edict and build your own vegetable garden. With just a few wooden panels, metal stakes, and some garden soil, you and your companion planted the seeds of a new way of life by the Lake. Just as your family put roots down, your garden’s roots are beginning to bear fruit. Maybe this is the society Jefferson wanted for America. All it takes is you and the farmer-entrepreneurs in your community to bring this vision to life.

^{Tomatoes and corn are coming along at Conesus Lake House}

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