Hampshire County Mass unique opportunity (Holyoke, Colrain: public schools, college, living in)

[brigid68]

My family of 5, children aged 8, 5, 3 have a unique opportunity to run an apple orchard in Chesterfield. We will be coming from the Washington DC area, originally from NYC. We currently own a deli and would like to stay in the food business. My fear is taking my children to a rural area, which I look forward to, and there are no other children around for them. They would be going to the local public schools and I can't find a site that would tell me about the schools. I have looked at greatschools.net but that is not giving me the picture I want.
Are there children around that mine will be able to play with?
Will putting my children in this situation be good for them?
I enjoy driving, so bringing them to cultural activities and sports activities is not a big deal. Living in the DC area you are in the car constantly.
Can anyone give me some insight on living in Chesterfield and raising children in a rural area, which I guess is really my dilemma.

Brigid

[missionhill]

Really interesting question! I wish I knew more--my wife's cousins raised their two children in the rural town of Colrain and I think it went generally well. One thing to consider: some of the Berkshire hilltowns have neither cell phone service nor high-speed internet access, which can be a bummer, especially for the online/text-addicted youth of today. Chesterfield has lots of year-round professionals these days b/c it's not so far from the 5-college area. When I was a child many moons ago Sugar Hill Road in Chesterfield was farmers and weekenders from Holyoke (including us). Now it's all year-rounders, and maybe still a farm or two. Anyway, I think the population is not just "rural" but has a good mix of professionals, maybe artists and crafts people, along with the local business people and farmers--not as much as Ashfield and some other hip-rural towns in the area but it's not just backwoods rural, either. They have a great Fourth of July parade in Chesterfield with a cookout lunch served afterward. If you can make it, you'd get some of the flavor of the town and have a chance to meet residents.

[western mass and love it]

i can chime in about the cell phone reception. i travel all over mass and vermont,and i have never been without reception in mass,even in places like chester, otis, sandisfield,hancock. vermont is a whole other story though.