Dieter Gehring stands in front of a pizza oven made from a converted 1930s-era fermentation tank from the old Dobler Brewing Co. of Albany that sat around on Indian Ladder Farms for 55 years after it was bought at auction.

Children and parents mingle with lambs during the 30th annual Baby Animal Days at Indian Ladder Farms on Good Friday, part of its redemption story after a fall fire destroyed its doughnut-making machinery and caused extensive smoke damage.

Indian Ladder Farms at the foot of the Helderberg Escarpment was established in 1916 by Peter Gansevoort Ten Eyck and now the fifth generation of the Ten Eyck family works there.

Dieter Gehring, who runs Indian Ladder Farms with his wife, Laura Ten Eyck, stands in the Clear Mountain Room event space created from a World War II-vintage Quonset hut.

After a Sept. 14 fire destroyed the old machinery, Dieter Gehring upgraded to Belshaw’s Donut Robot Mark V equipment, which can produce 44 dozen cider doughnuts per hour.

A circle of farming, bakery, brewery and restaurateur friends supported Indian Ladder Farms after a fire last fall destroyed their biggest revenue stream, cider doughnuts, and shut down its cafe and farm store until extensive renovations and an April reopening.

ALTAMONT — It was Good Friday afternoon and the proprietors of Indian Ladder Farms were witnessing a redemption story unfolding.

Baby lambs bleated. Goat kids and human kids frolicked in the hay. The ever-popular Baby Animal Days were here again for the 30th edition and parents thronged to the family-friendly school spring break event.

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The pièce de résistance was the buttery, sugary scent of piping hot cider doughnuts that wafted across the freshly redesigned and rebuilt café and farm store.

Seven months after a kitchen fire destroyed the doughnut-making machinery and extensive smoke damage shut down the farm’s most profitable fall revenue stream, Dieter Gehring and Laura Ten Eyck, the couple who operate Indian Ladder Farms, were filled with gratitude.

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