Blythedale Farm: A tale of two cheese makers

The ad read: “Milk a few cows and make money making cheese. Corinth, Vermont.” That was it. Eleven short words destined to change a family’s life.

About a decade after reading that simple ad, Becky and Tom Loftus are owners and operators of a 750-acre dairy farm with 60 cows, and they are the producers of a variety of award-winning Vermont cheeses.

Becky and Tom didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming cheese makers. But then, who does? Small-scale, artisan cheese production did not exist in this country until very recently, less than a generation, until the likes of Becky and Tom came along.

Tom and Becky grew up in a small agrarian community, Scottsville, N.Y., not far from Rochester. Neither grew up on a farm or participated in farming activities as children. They met in Scottsville, just after Becky finished college. Fell in love. Got married. Had two kids. Moved to Rochester, where Tom got involved in historic restoration and Becky worked in a development office.

It was when their boys, Brendan and Ryan, were still very young that Tom and Becky decided moving back to the country in Scottsville would make for a better life, and that the time to do it was before the boys had established lasting ties with city friends.

How Tom became an English teacher and Becky an office worker at the very high school they’d both attended is, I’m sure, an interesting story. Our lives are filled with chapters. But it does stray rather far from the subject at hand — cheese making.

So anyway, back in the country, they found an old stone farmhouse, renovated it and started to populate their acreage with goats and chickens. According to Becky, once you have two goats, you’re just moments away from having 40. Which is exactly what happened.

A family of four can consume only so much goat milk. Not even their neighbors’ pigs could make that big a dent in the output of the herd Tom and Becky were now milking by hand day and night. Which is how the making of cheese first entered their lives. Not as a commercial enterprise. Just in the kitchen, as a hobby. Becky says the cheese was quite good.

But there turned out to be a social problem with goats: The boys joined 4H and discovered that everyone else had cows. So it was out with the goats and in with the cows — Jerseys, great milk for drinking, even greater for making cheese. Just a few cows at first, but the few soon became 40 (kind of reminds you of the goats). But, while the couple was now selling their milk commercially, cheese making was still a hobby.

Life went on. The boys grew up. The parents, as modern parents are wont to do, began to toy with some time-honored fantasies for once the kids left home. Maybe they’d join the Peace Corps. Or pack it all in, buy a boat and sail around the world. Or…

Tom — described by Becky as the flighty one in the relationship — was driving home one day through New York State when he decided to detour slightly and visit an old farming friend. As they sat on the friend’s porch shooting the breeze, the friend, who was absently looking through that month’s edition of Hoard’s Dairyman, came across a classified ad. “Hey, listen to this,” the friend said, and read the ad aloud: “Milk a few cows and make money making cheese. Corinth, Vermont.”

Tom took Hoard’s Dairyman home and showed Becky the ad. And Becky — the level-headed one, she who kept the family grounded — sensed immediately that this ad was about to turn their lives upside-down.

Phone calls were exchanged. Business data was shared. And then, one day in 2003, Tom and Becky got in the car and went to have a look at this place in Corinth where cheese was being made — not as a hobby.

Talk about an easy sell. Tom and Becky arrived in Corinth by night on Columbus Day weekend. When they awoke they saw a picture-perfect Vermont village on a sunny morning at the very peak of foliage season. The centerpiece of this bucolic idyll was Blythedale Farm.

Sold. Hook, line, house, barn, land, Jersey herd — even the barn cats.

The deal closed in 2004. Becky and Tom, committed to land conservation and sustainable agriculture, have become incredibly accomplished cheese makers over these past 10 years. Blythedale Farm has received the Vermont Quality Milk Award for being in the top 2 percent of milk producers statewide. Theirs are happy cows who live in a tidy barn and have access to pasture whenever they see fit.

Vermont Brie, Camembert Vermont, Green Mountain Gruyere, Cookeville Grana, Jersey Blue — a collaborative effort of the Loftus family and their Jersey herd. Prize-winning cheeses one and all.

Here’s what I’d suggest if you want to see what Blythedale Farm cheeses are all about: Get a few friends together and purchase a 7-ounce wheel of their brie or camembert. Then get a piece of good French brie or camembert. Taste them side by side without knowing which is which. See what everyone thinks.

I’ll tell you what I think: En garde, France.

Blythedale Farm cheeses can be found in Stowe at Mac’s Market, Harvest Market and Edelweiss Market. You can also order them online from Dakin Farm and Harrington’s of Vermont.