One great family farm

Interns Paul Lawler and Nicole Lawler “hoop” the cheese. This means getting curds into colander-like molds that allow the liquid whey to drain out.

WILLIAMSTOWN – Cricket Creek Farm may well be one of the best gems of The Berkshires.

It’s off the beaten path, located at the end of an unpaved road and on the top of a hill.

To get there, one has to turn left at the Five Corners Store intersection and then take an immediate right onto Sloan Road.

The vistas on the way up to the farm are breathtaking. Waving green fields, open space, blue skies and fluffy white clouds, on a good day, all lead to 1255 Oblong Rd.

A rustic sign with the farm’s name hangs from an old tree trunk.

Brown Swiss and Jersey cows

Cricket Creek is a diversified, grass-based dairy farm with Brown Swiss and Jersey cows. A stroll into the barns will take visitors right to the cows, including the little calves.

It is also a family-run operation, owned by Jude Sabot. She originally purchased Cricket Creek with her late husband, Dick, in 2001. Mr. Sabot died in 2005.

They have four grown children, Diana, Topher, Oliver and Julia. Topher Sabot co-manages the farm with Matthew Ball, and just married Jennifer Mygatt, a nurse practitioner in Pittsfield.

In addition to cows on the farm, there are mixed-heritage breed pigs, too, that benefit from the cheese-making on the property.  They get to eat the protein-filled whey that’s leftover from the curds.

There’s a small flock of laying hens that provide fresh eggs for sale in the farm store.

An onsite bakery helps supply fresh baked breads, buns, cookies and so on, also for sale in the store.

Baker Jamie Ott makes freshly-baked goods five days a week.

She makes all kinds of bread such as crusty white, maple oatmeal and whole oat on Monday; black pepper parmesan, anadama, triticale or seven grain on Wednesday; her own choice on Thursday; oatmeal sunflower, crusty wheat, chunky cheddar cheese and breakfast buns on Friday; and crusty white, cinnamon raisin, cracked wheat, oatmeal, and Cricket Creek Farm bread on Saturdays. On Tuesdays and Sundays there is no baking.

Cricket Creek Farm in Williamstown is home to Brown Swiss and Jersey cows and cheese made on site.

Farm respects the land

According to one of Cricket Creek’s brochures, the farm’s mission is to “produce nourishing food that honors our animals, respects the land, and feeds our community, and to exemplify a sustainable model for small-farm viability.”

Cricket Creek Farm appears to do all of that and more. There’s lots of land to respect since Cricket Creek covers 500 acres, 200 of which are open hayfields and pastures, Mr. Ball said.

It is also a CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) farm, which is an alternative model for food distribution. Members of the public pay, in advance, for a share of food produced at Cricket Creek.

Then they pick up provisions on a specific day and time on a weekly basis.  The share includes a variety of what is produced such as raw milk, cheese, butter, bakery items, eggs, pork and beef.

There are deadlines that must be met for the 51-week operation. For instance, the winter share deadline is Dec. 20. Summer deadline is April 20 and fall deadline is Aug. 20.

A full share is $715 per season, which adds up to 17 weeks of dairy, meat and bread, all extremely fresh.  There are low-income shares available, too, and information on these can be obtained by contacting Cricket Creek Farm.

Cheese-making in progress

The day The Beacon visited the farm, cheese-making was in progess.  In order to go into the room where cheese is made, it was necessary to don a full-head hairnet and bright red clogs to transverse the slippery floor.

Interns Nicole Warren, originally from Connecticut, and Paul Lawler, from Pennsylvania, were busy “hooping.”  This means getting curds into colander-like molds that allow the liquid whey to drain out.

The apprentices went repeatedly to a huge vat filled with up to 125 gallons, or 1,500 pounds, of milk, scooped out containers of milk that contained curds and then poured it into the molds.

Mr. Lawler, who has been involved in cheese-making for a total of eight years, explained the molds would be stacked and left to stand overnight. Then, the following morning, rounds of cheese would be ready to take out of the molds and stored in brine for two to five hours. After that, the rounds of freshly made cheese head for the aging room.

Ms. Warren said Suzie Konecky is the head cheese-maker and creamery manager.

Interns help on the farm

In addition to Ms. Warren and Mr. Lawler, the other interns on the farm are Mike Fox, Jenni Logan and Casey Coman.

One of the four to five kinds of cheese made at Cricket Creek is Maggie’s Round.

Mr. Lawler said it’s a farmhouse-style cheese that is unique to the land and to the cows that are raised in the pastures.

It’s like an Alpine family cheese from France, Italy or Switzerland, or, like a cheese made in a farmhouse kitchen.  As it ages, Maggie’s Round cheese takes on a burnt sienna color, he said.

Products from Cricket Creek Farm are sold weekly at farmers’ markets such as Bennington, Vt.; Lanesboro; Lenox; Northampton; North Adams; and in New Lebanon and Troy, N.Y. They are also sold at the community market in Great Barrington.

Public can see cows milked

Mr. Lawler explained Cricket Creek is an “open book operation.”

The public is welcome to come and see the cows milked at 6 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Mr. Ball said there are between 50 and 60 cows on the farm, 20 to 35 of which are milking cows.  All the cows are named. Cows and heifers have names such as Alexa, Clementine, Imogene, Mirella, Oreo, Prudence, Rhubarb and Ruby.

For more detailed information on the farm, check out their website, cricketcreekfarm.com.

By the way, two creeks really do run through the property and, of course, there must be crickets, too.

Posted by Susan M. Wicker Guerrero on September 6, 2012. Filed under Community News,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry