Fresh Eggs At Overlook Farm

If it’s not immediately apparent that the property behind the old Georgian mansion at 69 Rear Pine Street in Danvers is unique, the chickens might be the clue. Overlook Farm was established in 1842, with the original property consisting of the main house, a guest house, a double sized barn and a pool house. 

Ham and Brian Glass sold their five bedroom Victorian in Marblehead at the height of the real estate market and moved to the Pine St. property about six years ago. Since then they have continued to work the remaining farmland on their share of the property, planting vegetable gardens, keeping beehives and even tapping the hundred-year-old maple trees on the property for the all-natural syrup that runs each early spring. They have recently added 13 egg-laying chickens and have branched out to selling the highly sought after organic eggs.

Over the last few years the Glass’ have made gifts of their yield to lucky friends and neighbors. For Ham, working the land is simply a way of life.  

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Glass thinks that the farming-gene just may be in her blood. “My dad was a wholesale farm distributor while I was growing up-and he still is,” she said. Glass moved from Lancaster County, PA to Michigan to study art, before attending graduate school in New York.  “I was at a division of Cornell, at a horticultural school there in Alfred, NY,” she explains. “Then, after that I got a Bachelors of Science from Salem State in Cartography, which is map-making.  I was always interested in maps, been collecting them since I was a little kid.”

Glass may best be known in the Marblehead area for her nearly 20 year co-ownership of Kipp’s Greenhouses.  After moving to Overlook Farm, Glass and her husband decided to keep bees, and became members of the Essex County Beekeepers Association, which meets at the Topsfield Fairgrounds monthly. They are also members of the Massachusetts Farm Bureau.  Ham is especially excited to see a growing culture of small farms sprouting up in the North Shore.  

“These little ‘farm-ettes’ are expanding,” she said. “I’m not crazy about the pre-made foods with all the additives that are out there.  I think if people are lucky enough to have a garden, there’s always the opportunity to make something.”

Last summer, a law was passed in Danvers giving residents the right to farm.  “I went to the town and let them know I was going to have chickens,” she recalled. “They asked me if I was going to have any roosters; I told them ‘No, but I have loud chickens!”  

The chickens have a clean bill of health from the state, certified organic, and Glass currently sells her eggs by the dozen. She is even planning to clear more land for a larger vegetable garden next season.  In her little garden this summer, she had enough tomatoes to freeze 96 pints worth.  “If I was selling them this year, I could have been selling tomatoes out of my ears,” she laughed.

“If we get enough produce to sell down the road, we’ll do it,” she said.  “I buy organic, and I watch to see what’s in food. I use chicken, goat and sometimes cow manure in my garden. We started out doing this for ourselves, and now  if someone wants to buy a dozen or so, here and there, that’s great!”

To contact Ham Glass email: overlook-farm@comcast.net