Friday, December 20

10E2299: Farmers Talk Episode 1 w/ Arthur Willey

A sled-driving/gouda-making/hayride acquaintance of ours Jon Wright of Taylor Farm in Southern Vermont has started a series of interviews called Farmer's Talk about the history, art and craft of farming - for the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. 


His first episode (and nice gams Jon btw) was an hour long talk with Arthur Willey, a retired dairy farmer who managed the Janeway Farm in South Londonderry, VT. We hear about growing up in the 1930's and 40's, the advent of refrigerated trucks and bulk tanks, and other things that have (or haven't) changed in dairy farming over the last century. Great bit in the middle about dealing with an employee "who could drink pretty well". Not only is this an interesting historical document but suddenly more important too as unfortunately Mr. Willey died this past October... Also love that he is still in the work uniform after all these year. Hoping for a shirt like that to replace my worn one... #turnthecollar



If still reading... we used to visit the Janeway Farm pretty regularly when Senator Janeway owned it back in the late 70s. Their cook made the best apple-pie, and we would play Jack Straws (like pick-up-stix on steroids) while Pops made house calls.