Hellobee

I’m much more of an experience gal than a gift gal, so for part of my Mother’s Day gift this year, Mr. Bee booked a farmstay weekend at the family run Stony Creek Farmstead in the Catskills, about 2 1 /2 hours north of New York.

Stonycreek is a working organic farm that has 6 rustic, yet luxurious, tents they rent out to guests from May – October. I’m an avid camper, but this was my first time “glamping.” The spacious wood-floored tents sleep 6 with 1 queen bed, 1 bunk bed, and 1 cabinet bed that kids will love. The tents don’t have electricity, but they do have running cold water, a wood stove, a fully stocked kitchen, and a flushing toilet. There is also a separate showerhouse with hot water. You can visit the farm’s animals including pigs, cows, and sheep; you can collect fresh eggs from the chickens; and Olive says the highlight of our trip was the extremely friendly farm cat Sylvester and farm dog Rose that came to visit our tent regularly throughout our stay. Needless to say, our city kids had an amazing time.

We stayed in the Hilltop tent

I don’t know who Olive loved more, Rose the dog or Sylvester the cat. 

A creek runs through the middle of the property. You can see chickens in the background.

laying hens freely roam the property

Here’s what it looked like inside our tent! When you walk in there’s a dining table that seats 6 to your right and two chairs to your left. On that counter there is a sink, with ample storage underneath.

See those little doors on that wooden wall? They open up to reveal a bed inside, which is where Charlie and Olive slept. There are doors on both sides and the top is not enclosed. And there’s a crawl space underneath where the kids could hide and play.

There are two bedrooms connected by a door. One has a queen sized bed and the other has bunk beds. The enclosed bathroom (not pictured) is in front of the room with the bunk beds.

Wild raspberries grew everywhere. Unfortunately they weren’t ripe enough yet for us to pick and eat!

Beautiful fiddlehead ferns covered the entire hillside.

We stopped by the chicken coop to collect fresh eggs every day.

The kids loved seeing the different shapes, sizes, and colors of the eggs. The yolks were also orange, whereas the eggs we buy from the market have yellow yolks. Kate (who runs the farm) said that was due to the chickens’ rich omnivorous diet that includes insects and worms in addition to fruits and vegetables. Guests can leave their organic food scraps (no meat or dairy but egg shells are ok) in the chickens’ coop area. When we dropped off our bucket, all the chickens went straight for the egg shells!

shower house which has single and family showers with hot water.

Sylvester the cat came to our tent every day to visit us, even though our tent was the furthest one. He even slept in the bunk bed. Olive did witness Sylvester catching a mouse by the barn one day and she told him, “Don’t eat the chipmunk! He’s a friendly chipmunk!” There were a lot of chipmunks on the property, and we had to explain to Olive that cats catch mice.

We woke up to rain the next day, so it was a good thing the kids had rain boots.

At 11am on Saturday mornings, Kate conducts a tour of the farm where you learn more about their farming practices. All these animals are raised for meat, and are completely pasture-raised. The pigs were very friendly, curious, smart and cute! Kate said that pigs are one of the few animals that maintain a separate area as their bathroom.

The sheep were not as friendly, much to Olive’s sadness who wanted to feed them some grass and flowers. But Kate did catch one so the kids could pet it.

Here is a video of the sheep talking. They sound more like “meh” than “baaa” and they all have different voices.

Kate set up a new grazing area for the sheep during the tour. It’s changed daily because those sheep sure can eat and they poop a lot too! Here they are moving into their new pasture grounds.

We didn’t get to milk the cow unfortunately because it was pregnant, but we did hear her moos echoing across the hilltops.

We picked some garlic scapes on the tour, which they cut off so that the garlic plant can focus on growing a big bulb of garlic underneath the ground. The scapes are perfectly edible and taste like garlic (though weaker). They’re used in a common spicy Korean side dish, so I took some for our lunch!

a couple of things from the farm store…

made with all farm fresh ingredients

There is plenty for the kids to do around the farm. Every guest there was also a family with kids around Charlie’s age and older.

Wildflowers grew everywhere and since Olive never has a chance to pick them in the city, she loved making her own bouquet.

sandbox and climbing structure by the creek

Olive and her loyal dog

Rose would even come visit us in our tent.

Because they also run a summer camp at the farm, there were lots of toys and art supplies as well.

Hanging out in the barn

the farm store had popsicles

We brought games to keep the kids entertained in the evenings. There was an assortment of puzzles on the farm that you can borrow as well. Solar powered lanterns are provided, and they work quite well to light the tent in the evenings if you hang them high up.


On Saturday nights, they host a make your own pizza night where they fire up their wood burning oven. They also invite their neighbors, so it’s a great way to get to know your fellow guests and some of the locals. This communal area features tables, chairs, and a campfire pit, and guests would often hang out in this area throughout their stay.

Chickens taking refuge from the rain, and the wood burning oven in the back

Charlie loves cooking so he had a lot of fun making his own pizza.

 peering at his freshly cooked cheese pizza

all the kids cooked s’mores in the campfire, although our kids prefer eating all the elements separately. And you can catch fireflies at night!

Every morning Kate bakes fresh bread that you can buy in the store, and it is delicious.

I wish I had taken a picture of the scrumptious breakfast I made with ingredients from the farm which consisted of:

• freshly baked bread with butter
• freshly ground coffee (the first time we’d ever ground whole beans)
• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• potato and onion hash cooked in bacon grease

Everything always tastes better in the great outdoors!

boots drying under the stove

The tents on the farm are provided by a company in the Netherlands called Feather Down, which supplies tents to a handful of other farms across the US if you’re interested in a similar farmstay experience but don’t live near New York. You can read more about Feather Down in a 2009 piece about Stonycreek Farm in the New York Times here.

We were a little unprepared for the trip because I went off the information on their website, and we didn’t carefully read an email attachment with more information before we arrived. I talked to Kate about it, and she said that she was going to update their website. Many of the families seemed to be repeat customers so they were a lot more prepared than we were on the food front. But with these tips, you’ll make the most of your stay!

– Bring rain boots. Even if it doesn’t rain, you’ll want to wear them on the farm tour, especially if you go in the pig pen! They’re also great for playing in the creek.

– Bring warm layers. The forecast called for warm weather in the 80’s, but it rained lightly for half a day and got a little chilly in the mornings and evenings.

– Bring headlamps for the kids. Once it got dark outside, we couldn’t see them running around. Some of the other kids who had stayed at the farm before brought headlamps. We’re definitely buying some before our next camping trip! Though we didn’t even end up using ours, flashlights are probably a good idea too.

– The tents on top of the hill are a bit of a hike, especially if you have younger kids, but they also offer more privacy. The tent closest to the pizza oven area has the least privacy, but it’s the most conveniently located to everything.

– There is an option for your arrival meal to be prepared, and then several options for baskets of veggies and meats. But you will be doing all the cooking from scratch with the provided ingredients. I had mistakenly thought that prepared meals to purchase were an option and didn’t pack that much food, so we ended up buying a lot of food from the store.

– It can take some time to get the wood burning stove going and hot enough, and you get really hot while cooking, so some quick-prepare items like bagels, cream cheese, cereal, etc. are handy, especially if you don’t want to cook every meal. There is a little hibachi grill in every tent that you can use outside if it’s too hot to cook inside.

– There is a pond on the other side of the farm as well as an herb garden dedicated to guests, though we didn’t get a chance to check them out.

– There are pots, dishware, utensils and all the cooking items you might need, but there was only 1 cast iron pan, which made cooking meals take a long time since many of the foods we were preparing required use of the pan. I’d definitely consider bringing an extra pan. Cast iron works especially great because it gets super duper hot.

– Coolers are in every tent and frozen water bottles are available for free in the store, but the bottles melt pretty quickly and don’t last an entire day. I actually froze water in gallon and quart size ziploc bags before our trip and brought them in an insulated cooler bag. They lasted 3 whole days until we got back home!

– Bring your own dish soap (you have to wash your dishes), hand soap, olive oil, butter, and other basic essentials, though the farm store does carry them if you forget. Salt and pepper is provided in every tent. Items in the farm store include: essential toiletries, every type of beef/pork/lamb cut from their farm, vegetables, yogurt, Applegate deli meat & cheese, milk, beverages, pasta, tomato sauce, mac and cheese, local cheeses, s’mores fixings, etc. and they are fairly priced.

– The water from the faucet is very cold, so heat some water in the large provided kettle and keep it in the basin to wash dishes or your hands will get very cold.

– We didn’t get bug bites (and Charlie is a mosquito magnet), but because it rained, our shoes we left outside had slugs in them in the morning.

– I burned my pinky finger on the wood burning stove (it gets very hot!). It hurt so badly, but luckily I had some Paw Paw Ointment with me that I use as lip balm. I applied it on my throbbing burn and it instantly felt better. I was so glad I had it on me!

– The first bag of wood is free, but you have to pay for subsequent bags. We ended up going through 3 bags of wood in our 2 night stay. It got a little chilly at night, and lighting the stove helped keep the tent warm.

– Pizza night costs $18/pp, and kids under 3 are free. Olive was napping during the pizza making so she didn’t get to participate and only nibbled on one slice, so be aware of the costs if you don’t want to participate.

– BYOB! We brought our own wine.

– They sell their own pork, beef, lamb, chicken and eggs on the farm, and make deliveries to NYC in the winter months.

– Wifi and electricity only works in the barn and the farm store, so it’s a good opportunity to unplug!

It really was a wonderful experience for kids to learn more about where their food comes, interact with farm animals, and have a chance to run around in the fresh mountain air. I’d highly recommend a farmstay for anyone!

PS – Mrs. Juice wrote a review of Kinnikinnick farm in the Chicago area here, which also uses Feather Down tents!