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When butter is much more than just butter
When it comes to gourmet food, what is top of mind for you? Caviar, charcuterie, truffles, artisan cheeses, wine? But probably not butter, right? Well, maybe you should rethink that list because a small business in Southern Maine is working hard to change your perception of butter. Casco Bay Butter was the brainchild of couple […]
Dairy lessons
Farm to school. Heard of it? It’s all the rage – bringing locally grown food into the schools (The milk, by the way, has always been local.), planting school gardens and using the food in the school cafeteria. All good lessons, but to truly give students the knowledge of where their food comes from, take […]
Dairy goes big in June
Cream of the Crop Rises to the Top
The McKeen family at Silver Maple Farms in Albion had no idea they were under such scrutiny, and while that may seem like a lead in to some Jason Bourne-like plot, it was really an honor for the McKeens. Dennis McKeen, who owns Silver Maple Farms with his mother Jean, received the Master Breeder award […]
First generation dairy farmer relies on hard work, good genes
Maine has dairy farms that stretch back as many as eight or nine generations and several that currently have three generations and multiple branches of the family tree working together. Others, like John Cox, are first generation farmers. They don’t have the family history, but they have the desire and the love of the land and […]
Still room for more maple
Goes Together Like Maple and Milk
Rodney Hall considers dairy to be the hub of his family’s farm in East Dixfield. The spokes are hay, his brother Randy’s herd of beef cattle, firewood processing and Rodney’s maple syrup operation. “We were diversified before diversified farms were the ‘in’ thing,” Rodney says. “We knew that milking 50 cows, we weren’t going to […]
Enjoy the gifts of winter
Love and Farming
Love of farming can often be like the love between two people. It can be beautiful, but is oftentimes messy. You share the joy of births but also the sorrow of loss. You celebrate your successes, but you also struggle through the hardships. Some days in farming though, depending on weather, finances, equipment breakdowns, and […]