Our Family

We're Paul and Joyce Hails, owners of Hails Family Farm LLC in Lopez, Pennsylvania. It's hard to believe, but 2021 marks 25 years of farming for our family!  Paul and I always “wanted a farm” and in 1994 that dream came true.  Both of us were born and grew up in beautiful Bucks County, PA in southeastern Pennsylvania. Sadly, many of the farms were being sold to land developers due to farmers being unable to afford taxes and the rise of big box stores in communities and farmers could not compete with the prices.  We began to look upstate for a farm or land and found a 35 acre farm in Wyalusing, Bradford County, in the beautiful Endless Mountains. It had once been a 110 acre dairy farm but had been sold and divided off into lots with the main farm still available. Our plan was to move to the farm “someday” but that someday actually happened a little over a year later. Back in Bucks County, we had purchased 50 Boer goats and due to new zoning laws, had to move our goats to the farm in Wyalusing.  In 1996, we and our 4 children moved to the farm!  Honestly, it really was a culture shock. But we quickly fell in love with this beautiful area and this new way of life.  Paul had to continue working in Bucks County to support our family.  On the weekends, he would farm and eventually we sold the meat goats and bought dairy goats and voila we were now dairy farmers!  Dairy farming is completely “other.” You MUST be at the farm twice a day of course to milk the animals.  It was a big adjustment.  Paul learned how to make delicious cheese and he took the cheese to the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia and then to farmer's markets in Philly.   

In 2005, after 9 years of commuting back and forth to Bucks County for work, Paul was able to come home full time as we had built an on-farm certified organic dairy processing plant for fluid milk, non-homogenized cream on top. We had a milking parlor for the goats and a milking parlor for the cows!  Paul also made yogurt and cheese. Our son, Zach, began to grow certified organic vegetables for the  markets.  Our daughters did a myriad of chores including milking, collecting the eggs daily and Jake, our youngest, also had plenty to do in the barn!  On a farm, the work is endless and it's not always easy to take time away from the work. We tried to keep Sunday as a day of rest and to only do the chores that were necessary. The farmer's markets were an invaluable experience for our children and many wonderful relationships were established. Market days were long and exhausting and you never knew how the day would go from vehicle breakdowns to lousy weather. We did enjoy gathering together at the end of the day as there were always good stories to hear from market.  

At the end of 2010, we sold our dairy as our kids were growing up and leaving the nest to explore other opportunities. We moved to the quiet little town of Lopez to a farm that had been settled in 1914 by Nicholas and Rose Mattichak and their 14 children.  For many years, the farm was the family's sole source of  income as Nicholas had died in the coal mines in the next town over in Mildred. We consider ourselves blessed to be the caretakers of this little farm and strive to do our very best to be good stewards of the land and the animals.