Our Story

I was thinking:

so this is how you swim inward,

so this is how you flow outward,

so this is how you pray.

Mary Oliver

Creating Beauty, Northern Michigan Style

Here we are: Sam and Susan Sharp, and our dog, Moon, and together, we own and operate Open Sky Farm.

In 2015, we purchased a 10-acre fallow hay field with two old barns, a rundown modular home, and piles of debris, located just outside of Cross Village, Michigan. We ditched the modular and built a small, energy efficient home on the existing foundation, then added five hoop houses, four caterpillar tunnels, a large solar panel, a chicken coop, a sauna, a couple of outbuildings (one for each of us!), a minimally heated shipping container, and finally, a quirky little border collie named Moon and a bunch of chickens. We fenced in 4 acres and currently have about 2.5 acres in production; the rest is landscaped with native and pollinator-friendly plants.

We decided a while back that small scale farming is one of the best ways to affect social and environmental change. Open Sky Farm grew out of that desire.

We are a small farm using organic and sustainable practices, that specializes in cut and potted herbs, and over 100 varieties of specialty cut flowers. Our goal is to provide beauty to feed your soul, all while working to preserve our land and water here in beautiful Northern Michigan!

We don’t think there is any better way to spend our “retirement!”