Talisman Farm is a small farm in northern Boulder County, Colorado, just north 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 host mailing lists for the Front Range UNIX User's Group, 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. It was apparently 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. With our interest in cider, we are slowly planting apple trees, primarily of English cider varieties, but these are still a couple years away from serious production.
Dick Dunn
July, 2002