Dancing Grace Farm: Our Story

Dancing Grace Farm started as a dream when I was in fifth grade. I had a wonderful friend named Kathleen who lived in a gorgeous farmhouse with a bank barn that was built in the late 1800s. We would spend our afternoons crawling around in the old barn, searching the former horse stalls and finding all kinds of historic treasures. I knew from that time on, I wanted to own a historic stone home with a bank barn.

My whole life I have enjoyed gardening and flowers specifically. I was a florist through high school and college... Eventually my sister started a wedding floral & event business and I became a partner. In 2018 my uncle, a fellow gardener, moved home from North Carolina and the second part of the dream was born: a farmer florist. Dan was an amazing gardener and was immensely talented at growing tulips, daffodils, calla lilies, roses, gladiolus and snapdragons. Dan and I would spend hours looking through bulb and seed magazines...Discussing the possibilities when we finally moved my family to a farmette. We actually came up with another name for the farm after my Grammy (Amazing Grace will be releasing a line of old fashioned remedies with this name). In June 2021, the dream of working with Dan would not come to fruition... Dan passed away in his sleep while on a camping trip with us in Niagara Falls. I spent the last year completely lost. Dan was like a second dad to me and life without him feels just...empty.

"Dancing" comes from an old saying in the south that Dan usually applied to our gin & tonics during the many summer beach trips: "Might as well, can't dance, it's too wet to plow and the fish ain't biting." I always took it as we should probably just go for whatever it was (the trip, the adventure or the gin & tonic). I have struggled to "just do it" for the last year but sometimes serendipity leads you to the people, places and circumstances you need to force your growth. That's where our little farm has come in. There are days the restoration process in our 1700s farmhouse and bank barn are downright brutal, taxing and tear inducing. However, I look back at how far we have come and am just feeling joy in the process. The hard work. The grit.

Do that thing you're afraid of. It may just be the thing that gives you unconditional joy. Our little farm has brought so much happiness in such a short period of time... I spent so much time debating if we were making the "right" choice knowing the mountain of work before us... But here we are. There's no place I'd rather be!