So...What is Talisman Farm, anyway?

Talisman Farm is a small farm in northern Boulder County, Colorado, on the north side of the little town of Hygiene. Talisman is our name for it. The locals know it as "the old Wisecup place", after the folks who owned it from the 50's to the 80's. (The domain talisman.com and the name for the farm came out of an earlier business of mine.)

The primary use of the domain over the years has been with email. We currently host mailing lists for the Mead-Lover's Digest and the Cider Digest. We also carry some web-based information on mead and cider, to supplement the digests.

Our land has been farmed since the late 1800's. It was probably originally part of a railroad land grant. The original farmhouse was built in 1903. The farm was operated as a small dairy for a while, possibly as recently as the 1960's. In recent decades the farm was allowed to fall into disrepair. We're trying to restore and maintain the old buildings (all of which are more than 50 years old) before they fall down. We feel it's important to preserve this little corner of Boulder County's rural character.

Most of our land is devoted to good grass hay, with occasional cattle pasturing, as we're simply carrying on as it's been done for years. We also sell our own raspberries and garden produce/flowers. Diane takes care of all of these; in the summer you'll see her selling by the roadside on 75th.

We've a keen interest in cider (hard cider, that is!). I am slowly planting apple trees, primarily of English cider varieties. My goal is not just to produce cider, but to determine which cider apples grow well in this area, and how the traditional characteristics of these apples are altered by our climate and soil. After years of amateur cider production, a cooperative effort with Medovina meadery in Niwot led to the first commercial cider made from our apples, harvested in 2007, with the cider released in 2008.

Dick Dunn
November, 2010