Martha Carver and Mike Spiak

Carver Farm Conservation Easement

Martha Carver and Mike Spiak made quite a team. Martha, now deceased, was a retired Skidmore College professor of music and Mike, now married with two children, is a pilot two years retired who runs Fossil Stone Vineyard on Martha’s land.

Martha and her late husband Frank moved to the farm in the 1940s. The house had been built in 1802 and was likely one of the earliest settled farms in the Town of Greenfield. Martha and her husband ran a sheep farm there for many years, recognizing that “historically it had been a farm, and it ought to continue to be a farm.”

Mike’s relationship with the farm and with Martha began when he was a child living down the road from her and the farm. Martha was known to give nature walks to the local neighborhood kids, and she developed an especially close relationship with Mike. More than thirty-five years later, the two shared a similar conservation mindset and love for this special place.

In 2002 Martha proudly placed a conservation easement on the property with Saratoga PLAN so that the farm and surrounding woods could be forever conserved. Knowing that Mike with the help of Saratoga PLAN would be caring for the land, gave Martha a real “feeling of peace.”