Together Again
If you’re attending the Hadley Memorial Day Parade tomorrow afternoon, be sure to wave to the Barstow’s Dairy Store and Bakery float! Instead of candy, we’ll be tossing Cabot cheese into the crowd!
The Hadley parade had taken a pause during the pandemic, and we are excited to rejoin the festivities and memorial ceremonies for this community event. You can just feel the restlessness in the Valley to get back to the gatherings that make this place feel like home. Next Saturday, June 4, Barstow’s together with the Cabot Creamery Cooperative will be celebrating “Cheese the Day” in honor of National Cheese Day with FREE Cabot grilled cheese sandwiches, 11am-3pm.
Barstow’s is one of 800 farm families in New England and New York part of the Cabot Agri-Mark Cooperative. Rather than taking on the processing, bottling, transportation, and marketing for our high-quality milk, we work with a co-op. This way, 100% of our energy is focused on farming, and Cabot can focus on making the world’s best dairy products. This connection with our co-op and other co-op farms provides us peace of mind that our milk gets to market – and connects us with a wider community of dairy farms in our region. We are one of six farmstands participating in “Cheese the Day” so if you’re reading this newsletter but aren’t close by, check out the map of where these delicious events will take place!
June is Dairy Month
June has a lot of dairy related events: National Cheese Day, National Milk Day, National Chocolate Ice Cream Day. This is because June is National Dairy Month! To celebrate, we invite you to reflect on the 13 essential nutrients found in milk, the affordability and availability of this nutritious food in your community, the role that dairy farms play in keeping land open for wildlife habitat, climate resilience, and food security, and the value of having farms and food production within our neighborhoods.
Barstow’s is part of the greater Cabot farm network and we are also part of a tight community of dairy farms right here in the Pioneer Valley. There’s value in having many farms in one place: the milk truck comes without complaint, the grain truck stops in town more frequently, several large animal veterinarians operate in the area, we can lend each other equipment, a helping hand, and sometimes, a shoulder to cry on in a difficult market like the one that we’re in.
Our food system is stronger because we have each other and because we have a community (YOU!) that supports the work we do!
Farmstands in Hadley, South Hadley, and Sunderland are celebrating June with the Dairy Month Dairy Crawl! Visit the participating farmstands: Barstow’s, Maple Valley Creamery’s Scoop at the Silos, McCray’s Country Creamery, Flayvors of Cook Farm, North Hadley Sugar Shack & Market, and Smiarowski’s Farmstand and Creamy; and purchase an ice cream to get your Dairy Crawl passport stamped between June 1 and June 30. Full Dairy Crawl details here!
Memorial Day Weekend
Interested in diving even deeper into our farm community? Barstow’s Dairy Store and Bakery is hiring. For Memorial Day Weekend, Barstow’s Dairy Store and Bakery is open 8am-4pm, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Stop in to grab steaks, burgers, Hadley asparagus, strawberry rhubarb pie, ice cream, and other long weekend essentials.
We are delighted to accept graduation party orders for cakes, desserts, party platters, and picnic salads. And don’t forget about Dad – we are also taking Father’s Day Orders for favorite treats and Barstow’s farm raised beef bundles too.