Goshen

Neil Godden is the sole proprietor of Neil C. Godden Traditional Timber Framing and Carpentry. His niche is cruck framing, a medieval timber framing found in cathedrals, which he builds with his business partner, Dave Bowman. In 10 years, his business has grown to include bmilding one entire house, beyond two or three timber frame houses a year. In cold winter weather, he works less. He said materials and tool prices have increased.

"From the time I started the project, March to June 2007, plywood had gone up 20 percent," he said, while taking off his coat after working on a timber frame in Worthington, due to be raised this month. Planer blades that cost $40 last time he purchased them now cost $52.

Judy Morin bought the Goshen General Store last April from her mother June Morin. It has been been family owned for 35 years.

"It's doing alright for now," said Morin, who started working at the store when she was 9 or 10. "when your mother owns the store, your stick here," said Morin. "Now my daighter's stuck here."

Her daughter Kelsey looks as if she thinks that its a good thing as she smiles shly poiting out squirrels on her mom's pink sweathshirt.

Morin added snowmobile parts like, carbides, or studs, catering to snowmobilers cruising trails behind her store, and ATV parts to the inventory of beer, liquor, bait and snacks.

"When they break their snowmobiles, they've got to have somewhere to go." They also can purchase Snowmobile Association of America passes there.

She expects business to pick up in the summer, with campground ' vacationers, and visitors to the DAR State Park.

Mike George is manager of George Propane on Route 9, owned by his father, Alfred, his brothers Mark and Christopher, and Mike himself. People are ordering less propane, and taking longer to pay their bills, George said.

"Fuel bills are 20 to 30 percent higher. Instead of paying tbem off in 30 days, they are paying them off in 60." However, he said, "Business is still steady. We stay busy because we're growing. Every year people are installing new gas appliances."

George said fuel prices have leveled off for a month. "As fuel deale maintain our margin."

For 37 years, Richard Richard has owned the Good Time stove Copmany on Route 112, selling and re-oring elaborately decorated, highly functional vintage woodstoves.

"The Internet drives a lot of business. We have a very high-end clientele, who buy really beautiful stoves," said Richardson, comparing his stoves to vintage cars in their appeal. "Through our Web site we make six out of 10 sales without us ever seeing the customer." One of his stoves was in the movie "Amistad" and two have been bought for the new movie "Hell Boy II".

He spices up business with fun, hence its, name. He had wanted a Tin Man costume for 15 years, to match the well-known landmark with the gleaming red heart that guards his store. He found one in New Hampshire, and, bought it, even though he was broke at the time. When he took it to a local tin-knocker, Tom Fern of Chesterfield, for alterations, it turned out that Fern had made it.

In her sixth year of business, Candy Laflam of Goshen, has an established 400 clients for her Pampered Pet Sitting, in parts of Franklin and Hampden counties and all of Hampshire County.

She says that 80 percent of those clients will use her service once a year, while 20 to 25 clients a day have their pets have a midday walk while they are at work.

"We do everything from millipedes to horses," said LaFlam, includingjhedgehogs and pot belly pigs,

While she does advertise, clients find her through word of mouth. "My vets and clients do my marketing for me," she said, She noted that business has been constant.

"In 2007, I expended in Amherst, Belchertown, and plan to expand into Greenfield," she said. "I can only thank my clients for that."

LaFlam is in the process of hiring three additional staff members, to add to her current core of five employees. Each employee works in a certain territory so the clients and animals remain familiar with them.

Worthington

Kip Porter and his partner, Mary-Beth O'Shea, give wagon rides, sleigh rides and have miniature donkeys and cute barn kittens for people to pet at their home business, O'Shea and Porter Draft Horses. They give wagon rides at weddings and special events. "That pays for their feed," said Porter.

After logging part time for 20 years, Porter has been logging full time for five with his Belgians, Mike and Rock. "I have four jobs right in Worthington. Two of them I can drive the horses to," he said, his face ruddy from working out in the wind.

Within the last year, he said, the price of logs. has dropped, cutting into his profits. "I can't increase my production," Porter said. "The horses and I can only produce so much in a given day." Nonetheless, O'Shea and Porter have a new barn with running water and electricity where they store 1,800 bares of hay trucked n from a field in June, when hay is cheapest. They received a grant a to help build the barn.

"This grant is given to Massachusetts farmers, to keep them from going out of business, toward big capital expenses to make them more economically viable," said O'Shea. She has a full-time job off the farm.

Kip shoes their six Belgians, saving over $100 a horse on each shoeing.

Today he is taking Bubba, a 6r year-old Belgian, out for his fifth round of training, with 16-year old Mike. "It's time he became a man," joked Porter. Bubba nearly died from starvation before being taken on speculation by the couple for 30 days with the hope that they might be able to save him, which is they did. He is in glowing health with a full coat. They are surprised he doesn't shy from the town plow in roaring by.

Valerie Sullivan owned a selfle serve, 2,500-bush blueberry "hobby" farm, Blazin Berries, for 13 years, until last November. The work became too much, since she so did it all herself. "It wasn't worth it," she said. She made less than $1,000 a year, selling them from ng a road-side cart with a lock box .

"I went through five locks. The neighbor kids came and snapped it off at night." The house and farm sold within two weeks. She said, "It was time to move on, and so I did," all the way to New Mexico.

Huntington

Fanciful Victorian ephemera is what Barbara Paulson specializes in, offering prints, trade cards, old postcards and books at her homebased business, Paulson's Books and Ephemera, since 1980. "I'm closed from October to May because next to my house the snow always gets beyond me."

Last year she had a windfall of 1,000 first-edition mystery books from Washington that she bought from a book reviewer-who retired, Jean White. "That went over big," said Paulson.

Steve and Linda Hamlin have run Mountain Laurel Designs from their home since 1990. Only established regular clients buy window treatments from Hamlin, who is certified in window treatments.

"People don't have money, and are concerned about their job situation," said Hamlin. "It has been incredibly slow." She dropped her Yellow Pages ad.

Their second business, selling functional bags and clocks with imprints of her husband's photographs, at fairs since 2004, is just breaking even. A few months ago, her husband started their third business, NE Webart, which is reportedly doing well. He also makes professional clown shoes for a Springfield-based company, and made 70 pairs of shoes for the "Grinch" movie.

Chesterfield

The B&B features three rooms with a full breakfast - fruit, cereal, eggs, meat or pancakes. Right now, it's slow, she said, adding that the inn's busy season is April through October. She can't say what the coming season will be like, as customers haven't booked reservations yet.

"I lucked out," said Bonnie Smith, of Chesterfield. In the child care business for 15 years, Smith has owned Bonnie's Program for six years. She provides beforeand after-school programs for 70 to 90 children a day at New Hingham Elementary School, which serves Chesterfield and Goshen, at Westhampton Elementary, and at Anne T. Dunphy, which serves Williamsburg.

"My work is guaranteed," said Smith. "I've been really lucky to help the people in my community - Chesterfield - being able to help the working families feel happy and safe while they're working." She has 14 "fabulous" employees, and pays rent and insurance at the schools to use their space. Smith said she has met all her goals and feels fortunate to be a vital part of the schools and her own community.

After being in business full-time for 39 years, Mary Anne Coleman is cutting back at her home-based Country Miss Beauty Salon to a couple of hours a week for health reasons. "I'm getting ready to retire in the next year," she said.

Extending New England's short growing season by having two greenhouses, one for seedlings and one for crops in the ground, is one innovative move that Tevis and Rachel RobertsonGoldberg use to make their business, Crabapple Farm, steadily prosper.

They sell vegetables and eggs, farming on seven acres, with hay and pasture dn 25 acres of their 185-acre farm. They sell meat from their dozen mixed head of cattle, and two dozen sheep. They try new crop varieties every year for their 1.00 regular customers. Tevis Robertson-Goldberg foresees that California growers soon will see that "transportation is a less cost-effective option," creating more business for local growers. "Food is not a discretionary purchase," said Robertson-Goldberg.

For owners of the Chesterfield General Store, it helps to be the only local store offering candy, beer, movies, groceries, a full deli and pizza, in an eight-mile radius.

Since Denise Kellogg and her brother, Daniel LaPrade, bought Chesterfield General Store, in August 2006, Kellogg has added hard ice cream, and serves breakfast on Saturday and Sunday throughout the year.

Kellogg painted the breakfast room pale orange and added yellow salvaged Subway booths, giving the room a southwestern flair.

She hasn't done any advertising yet, but will put signs up outside when all the hardware for the new wireless cafe she is planning for customers is hooked up, within 2 weeks. "only people who live within two miles of the Verizon Wireless building can get service," she said referring to the Verizon building in chesterfield.

Her father, Daniel LaPrade, mother Claire, husband Michael and daughter Savannah, 14, help out. Kellogg says ther are an enormous help, especially since she had a go-cart accident last year, breaking her left hand. "I couldn't lift anything," she said. "My daughter had to do my hair. I got up at 4 o'clock for her to do my pony tail."

Cummington

His family helps with the 100 sheep he raises for purebred breeding stock and meat at his farm, which he has owned for 51 years. Retired from his state job, he farms full time. He has Southdowns, black-faced Suffolks and white-faced Dorsets. He has increased his show circuit from showing locally to including bigger shows in Louisville, Ky.

Amy Pulley and Alice Cozzolino are planning coffeehouses, a tasting and a film series based on environmental issues, and have just installed a bulk herb display at The Old Creamery Grocery Store in Cummington, which they have owned for over seven years. Their store is a focal point on Route 116.

Business-wise, "Mid-October to mid-December was a bit weak. We're up from last year," said Cozzolino. "Our customers talk about the economy a lot. They're worried," said Cozzolino, her arm in a sling from recent shoulder ery. "Our insurance is going way up, fuel is going way up, vendors are charging delivery fees they didn't used to.

At this point, Cozzolino said they are trying not to pass on increased business costs to their customers.

Douglass Reed is minding Cummington Supply Inc., on Main Street, started by Frances Kip in 1974, while the owners take three months off. Reed said it's been a little slow, compared to other years. "In the last couple weeks I've been selling Sheetrock and insulation. People are moving indoors to work."

According to herbalist Lisa Edson, who has owned home-based TwinStar Herbals for three years, "business is expanding." She has made herbal medicinal products geared to healing skin rashes like eczema. She has been a certified herbalist since 1999. "I make honey products mixed with herbs, to make the herbs taste good." She keeps costs down by doing all the marketing herself. She sells her products in Boston, Connecticut, Vermont and Western Massachusetts.

Cosimo Ferrante relocated his business, Mad House Imports, from Williamsburg to Cummington, on Dec. 1 last year. His business has grown so much that he needed room to spread out, and to garage his minis. He bought the space with two buildings, known as Cummington Garage for the last 30 years, with his father, Douglas Ferrante. A 1993 graduate of the New England Technical Institute in Whately, Ferrante has been interested in Minis as a hobby for 20 years, and turned the hobby into a business in the last two.

He says it is priniarily an Internnet operation - his clients find him on the Internet, sending him their cars "to fix the rust, engine and brakes, to make it like a new car," from all over the United States, including Las Vegas, Virginia, and Tulsa, Okla.

"There are only two or three other shops in the country, in California and Georgia," said Ferrante. Besides half a dozen rebuilds of Minis a year, he provides other car services, since his goal is "to stay busy in the crummy economy." He converted one Mini with a diesel engine to make it capable of running on vegetable oil, with a custom-built tank on the right side. This grease car came in second place in the 2006 Tour de Sol. Right now, he's getting a car ready that is entered to run a 1,400-mile race - the Targa Newfoundland - this summer.

Plainfield

John Lobrose has forged hinges, hooks, bathroom and kitchen items at his home-based Hot Anvil Forge part tiine for 14 years. He plans to find more gift stores, beyond Amherst and Great Barrington, to showcase his wares.

Veteran logger Michael Orzel has owned and operated Michael Orzel Logging for seven years. He says business apd firewood sales are good, since he has made adjustments. "Now you have to categorize the logs to get more money for me and the landowners, to make ends meet for the fuel buyers," he said. While prices of saw logs have gone down because there is not a lot of building, he said veneer prices are holding steady.