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Ben Dykema runs the Wilcon Farm in North Ferrisburgh, Vermont, and its name is a combination of his parents’ names, Wilma and Cornelius. After emigrating from Holland and getting married in New Jersey, Wilma and Cornelius purchased the family farm...

More Than Milk Since 1945, Whittiers have worked together to make good food for neighbors. In addition to their dairy herd, they run The Milk Store, which they describe as a 40-year-old, overgrown 4-H project. It has grown from a table under a tree piled with sweet corn to a year-round store bursting with vegetables grown...

Wappingers Falls, New York, is located along the eastern bank of the Hudson River, just south of Poughkeepsie. The village dates back to the mid-18th century, when much of the area was farmland. Today, due to the constant bustle of U.S....

Coming Home to Stay While some dairy farms are challenged to find the next generation of farmers, Tiashoke Farms had the opposite problem—if you can call it a problem. Although Frank and Terry Ziehm pushed their three sons to explore...

A Different Kind of Chocolate Milk Farmer-chocolatier Kimberly Thorn crafts her Milkhouse Chocolates by meticulously matching the milk of each cows with all-natural flavorings like farm-grown mint or raspberries. The “buttery, honey, creamy caramel” milk of Daydream, for example, is...

Shared Love, Different Breeds When Joanna and Adam Lidback first bonded over their mutual love of cows they overcame the fact that he was a Holstein guy and she was a Jersey girl. Today, their blended herd at The Farm...

Love of Nature A shared love of nature first brought John Merrill and Lorraine Stuart Merrill together as college students. “John grew up hiking in the White Mountains, working on trail crews in the summer. I’d spent my childhood on...

Perseverance A devastating barn fire, a new highway built through their farm, suburban development pressure—the Scholtens have been through a lot since Adriena and Jacob Scholten left their native Holland as newlyweds in 1959. They first landed in Iowa where...

Ice Cream Dreams At the age of nine, tenth-generation dairy farmer Beck Johnson had a dream. Like lots of kids, he dreamt of ice cream—but in this case, he wanted to make it, not just eat it. And so Sanctuary...

A Family Tradition As the Chambers Farm sign proudly proclaims, farming has been “a family tradition” since 1898—and the tradition continues. The baton has passed into the hands of Dan Chambers, who grew up the second youngest of six kids and eventually joined his parents, Ken and Peg, to keep...

From 4-H to 400 Milkers The Caverly Farm started out close to 75 years ago as a small 4-H project for the family, a passion that has grown into a multi-generation business. In 1962, Frank Caverly formed a partnership with his brothers EC and...