Voices of CT Veteran Grown: Second Episode

Voices of CT Veteran Grown In this second segment of our special feature highlighting CT Veteran Farmers.
For more information visit: ctveterangrown.org

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Ihart Communities. Thank you so muchfor listening. I'm Renee Denino, and
we are meeting our veteran grown farmershere on iHeart Communities over the next few
months. We're super excited to havein our studio today some old friends and
new friends. So first welcome thepresident of the Connecticut Farmer's Veteran Coalition Chapter,
Jared McCool from stead Fast Farms.Hello, all, it's nice to

(00:21):
see you. Your brother was inhere last time, Yes he was.
He was very proud of you,as we are because you are what was
your part of the military. Iwas in the Marine Corps, so I
was a machine gunner by trade,and then I ran a squad of machine
gunners. Thank you for your service. Thank you. I could tell you
want to talk about it, sowe'll talk about your farm instead. But
you know you're part of this obviously, this is important to you. You're

(00:42):
the president of the Connecticut chapter herefor the Coalition of Veteran Farmers, So
tell me a little bit about thatand then we'll get into your farm and
introducer our other farmers today. Sure. Well, I'm a first generation farmer
as well, and Connecticut's got greatagricultural programs. But when I tried to
find something to belong to, somethinga little more closely related, like you

(01:03):
know we had in the military,it came up short. So Connecticut,
Well, Farmer Veteran Coalition is anational organization with individual chapters and states across
the country. So I said,what, it'd be a great idea to
bring one here to Connecticut. Now, if I'm remembering correctly, your farm
is about seven maybe eight years andit's running or is that how long your
brother has been with you? SoSteadfast Farms is in its eighth year now,

(01:29):
and we started Steadfast Farms poultry processingand slaughter last year in twenty twenty
three. And what led you toI mean you had, I mean I
don't know what the world of possibilitieswere for you when you got out of
your service, right, I don'tknow what you were thinking of doing.
Why farming? Why did you chooseor you know, poultry or your particular
brand of farming. Why did youchoose that? Sure? Well, when
I got out of the military,I started in corporate America, and I

(01:53):
had a great job, great pay, and everything was just status quo.
But I felt a lack of purposeI was happy about getting up every day.
I didn't feel challenged anymore, andI had a love for working with
dogs and working with birds. Sothat kind of led me into starting a
business out of it and found itsustainable and grew from there. Ctveterangrown dot

(02:15):
org is a great website for peoplelistening right now, especially if you're a
veteran thinking about maybe putting your handtowards farming or working in this industry.
It's a great place to go toget information ctveterangrown dot org. And if
you are a consumer of poultry orvegetables, or mushrooms or wine or so
many things we're learning about with thisprogram, look for the label CT Veteran

(02:37):
Grown. This way, you knowyou're supporting our veterans, you're supporting our
local economy, you know where yourfood is coming from, and these farms
are employing local people right absolutely absolutely. What's great about that website is if
you ever worry about the grocery storenot being available or that supply chain stopping,
if you go to CT Veteran Grownyou can find the actual farm that's

(02:57):
growing those products, and they're alwaysgoing to have products right here in the
state. Of Connecticut. All right, I'd like to introduce our other two
guests today who are so awesome fromStill River Farm. Please welcome Andy Da
Bolonio. It is so nice tohave you here, and you're from Coventry.
Yes, I am Renee, thankyou for being here. And our
friend who is no stranger to thisprogram, David Buck from Guardians Farm in

(03:20):
Southbury. Hello Book, Hello Renee. It's always a pleasure to be in
your company. It is truly apleasure to be in my company. Thank
you as my best friend. Youshould know that, yes, but I
do. Let me get to StillRiver Farm first, is Andy, if
you don't mind, tell us whatpart of the military you come from,
and then about your farm. Iwas in the Marine Corps for a few
years and I'm a Vietnam Vet.Thank you for your service. I know

(03:42):
our Vietnam vets deserve all the thanksthat we can give them. Certainly didn't
get it when you came back.So it's an honor to have you here.
And I own and operate with mywife, Still River from Farm and
Coventry, and our main product isgrowing wheat. I also grow ry and
I grow some yellow corn for cornmeal. Do people think about that.
For Connecticut, I don't think Iwould think of wheat being grown in our
state. No, not at allback in early years eighteen hundreds perhaps or

(04:05):
something, but all that moved west. But it was grown here when the
colonists first came. Wow, Andso do you sell locally? Do you
make product locally? And you know, is there a way that we can
find out how to get your productinto what we're eating? Yes? I
grow all the wheat locally in Coventryand also grow ry, and I grow
yellow corn for cornmeal, and thoseproducts can be found. The flour from

(04:29):
those products can be found at WillhelmanneckFood co Op and Fiddleheads co Op in
London, and I have it allground by a stone ground mill in Kingston.
Is your product also used for thinkingof the corn? Does it go
for any feed? Or am Ithinking incorrectly? Is it just strictly for
human consumption? It's for human consumptionless you know, it doesn't pass with

(04:49):
the federal regulations. But so farit's been good. Now, are you
a first generation farmer? Not really. My mother and father were both farmers
and lived on the farm back inItaly, and I became aware of that.
But after the service in the twentyfive years of civil service with the
Town of Manchester Fire and after retiring, I decided I was going to farm.

(05:12):
You picked an easy profession, youknow nine to five right. It
was actually an experiment because I startedout with veggies, organic veggies, went
to the farmer's markets and all this. It was one man show and it
got very intense. So I decidedpreviously that I forgot about that. A
few years of growing raspberries greenhouse raspberries, like now I would be picking raspberries

(05:34):
for sale. I sold all theraspberries, I couldn't make any money.
So with the organic veggies, againsold all the veggies, but still made
money. But it was too intense. So I decided to become a gentleman
farmer and get into wheat. Isaw combine for sale and I answered the
ad, and eventually I went topurchase it. And transporting the combine was
more expensive than the combine. We'retalking ancient combine made in the forties.

(05:58):
And since then I've upgraded to selfpropelled and a lot of other ancillary equipment.
But everything was started borrowed. Iborrowed, detracted a plow, I
borrowed the plow. The only thingI had was a little cub in an
old combine. So we went fromthere. Do you find being a part
of this Veteran Coalition or this CTVeterans Grown, are you able to get
more help than you thought you wouldand how has it been helpful to you?

(06:19):
Well, so far, I receivedtwo transition grants from the state.
Good well, we wish you goodluck. Thank you on that, and
thank you for sharing your story.And that leads us to Guardians Farm in
Southbury, Connecticut, which is aninteresting farm because you have your animals,
you have your product, and youhave grants going on eventually to become a

(06:40):
dairy farm. So, David,first and foremost, tell everybody where your
arm of the military was. SoI served twenty two years in the US
Coast Guard, most of it wasreserves. I retired in twenty twenty.
Thank you for your service. You'rewelcome. We appreciate you very much.
And I appreciate the fact of Guardian'sFarm. I feel it I'm a little
bit biased only because I see thefarm and I know what goes into it,
and I haven't really said it properlyto any of our guests today,

(07:02):
our previous guests that I do understandthat farming is not it's not a job.
It's your life. It's a lifestyle. It's every single day, there's
no day off. It's twenty fourto seven. Talk a little bit about
what got your farm started and whatyou do. So we started, I'd
say it literally started in twenty thirteenwith three chickens. And we got three

(07:24):
chickens and we had a garden,and we just kind of started with a
couple of goats. We're like,hey, we like getting eggs. Let's
I couldn't We couldn't keep a cowwhere we were. We drink a lot
of milk. Let's get a coupleof goats. And then it started.
We started making our own soaps,lotions for ourselves, and it kind of
snowballed into doing some small events,some small farmers' markets, and we started

(07:45):
wholesaling doing larger events. Eventually weoutgrew our space. We were in Naugatuck
and twenty twenty January of twenty twentywe closed on our property in Southbury.
Then the pandemic hit and we prettymuch relocked. We were still working full
time, both of us, mywife and I. We were relying for
the business, for the small businessand the farm We were relying on fairs,
festivals and farmers' markets and there weren'tany. So when we bought this

(08:07):
new property in Southbury, we said, all right, let's just open.
And even though the pandemic was goingon, it was probably our best year
because there was absolutely nothing for anybodyto do, and we had a pretty
good social media presence even then,and people just started coming out and the
town of Southbury was great. Webasically converted an old section of our barn,
which was built in eighteen fifty intoour farm stand. It was very

(08:30):
small, you'd get like one persongoing there at a time, and everyone
was kind of freaked out because ofthe pandemic. So the town's like,
well, we do to help you. I need to make it bigger.
So it's like, all right,make it bigger. So we basically took
over this entire section of our barn, which used to be a hay loft,
which is right off our driveway.As you know, that really kind
of catapulted us to where we arenow. That year we started with our

(08:50):
first two cows. We initially hadplans of building a dairy just for the
goats. But then we got twocows, one was bred and one wasn't
ended up having a calf whull,host of problems. Didn't have any milk
then, but we started to accumulatemore cows, probably faster than we should
have. I also thought we wouldhave gotten more assistant from either low not

(09:11):
really local, but state or federal. As far as funding, I also
didn't we didn't expect certain equipment delays. We've been producing milk since twenty twenty
one when we started to build thedairy, and going into twenty twenty four,
we're close. But last year wehad a bunch of hurdles with contractors,

(09:31):
you know, finally got equipment thatwe paid for in full. Our
pasteurizer in September twenty twenty one.We finally got last summer. So we've
had cows that have had calves youknow, in and out of milk,
have another calve. So that's beenkind of frustrating as far as the business
side of it, probably some youknow, poor decision as far as acquiring
cows. Of the cows, Imean, we love our cows awesome,

(09:54):
and and your animals too, becauseyou do have some rescues. Yeah,
so we do have we have wehave goats, cows. The wife wanted
EMUs, so we got EMUs.Then we had two. One died so
also we're hatching EMU eggs and nowwe have four. We sold a bunch
of them. We have. Westarted with one mule, our mule Annie,
who uh, she's basically livestock guardian. She's with our cows twenty four

(10:16):
hours a day. This past summerwe rescued two ex amish working draft mules
from kill penn and Pennsylvania, Honorand Patriot, who you've obviously met.
They're phenomenal. Came to us witha whole host of problems, so we
fixed everything as far as hot fishues, putting weight on them. They're doing
amazing. We got we have ducks, chickens. It's a working farm right

(10:37):
now and fairly new because you're bothfirst generation. Yes, correct, and
you're gonna have to correct me ifI'm wrong, and maybe Jared'll never wrong,
So just throw that is true.But I think you're you just joined
this organization, so you're fairly new. You met because of our first show
and because of the show that yourbrother Jared was on and another guest.
And and so you've just sort ofcome into this community because I don't think

(10:58):
before or that you're aware of allthis opportunity that could be before you.
So does that excite you to knowthat you've got really a support system now
too as well? Right, Yeah, that's the main thing I kind of
have been looking at. This isa big support system of people who are
like minded, driven people that wecan kind of rely on, bounce ideas
off of. I mean even justus, you know, having the farm

(11:20):
stand, I'm already thinking going intothe year of tapping into various people to
carry their products in our farm stand, to offer other items that we don't
have right now, to support yourother veteran growth. That's incredible. Another
avenue that I actually didn't even necessarilythink of in the store. There would
be a great I'm here for youthe brother I never had. But in

(11:43):
any event, this is this isa really great opportunity to share stories with
people who are passionate about what theydo, and you know, general'll go
to you. I mean, obviouslyyou know this this is your lifestyle.
This isn't this isn't just your job. This is your life's work. That
hopefully can get past down now throughgenerations and book saying with you and Andy,
you know, do you see thisbecoming all of you? Do you

(12:05):
see your farms becoming generational? Sure? I think we're building something that's sustainable
and repeatable. And with Connecticut FarmerVeteran Coalition, if you look at the
military as a whole, our corereally came from the strength of you know,
small teams playing into a larger mission. So by creating this local chapter
here, it's ryan by veterans,it's our programs are produced by the veterans

(12:28):
that are a part of our group. So like Buck just joining on,
he wasn't on the last meeting thatwe had, but he got voluntold that
we're going to hold our summer springsocial at his farm. Each person that
comes on, we've become stronger andwe offer something new to the organization.
And again I don't think that Idid ask you Andy this, but is
there a way people can follow youon social media? Are you the type

(12:50):
of farm where the public I feellike, are you the type of firm
that the public comes to you?Or you sort of provide your service to
different you see what this is isthat a pager. No, oh okay,
just about so much for social media. However, I do have a
website ctweat dot com ct wheat Wheatdot com. A pleasure to put that
up along with this interview on Guardian'sFarm. I know we can follow you

(13:13):
on social media. Yeah, Facebook, Instagram, it's all Guardians Farm.
Our website is Guardiansfarm dot com.Right, And I also wanted to just
point out, as with all ofour military veterans that and if I miss
somebody, I do apologize, butyou and your life are both law enforcement
as well. So again, thankyou for your service, thank you for
your one other thing, Yes,sir, one other way to find us

(13:33):
is if people follow you. Allthey have to do is look at every
single post about Wolfie to see who'stagged, and it's always us. I
tag them every day, twenty timesa day. That's multiple notifications today as
you're tag the dog Wolfgang, appreciateall of them. You're welcome, sir.
I want to say thank you toour guests today, obviously from the
Connecticut Farmer Veteran Coalition Chapter and alsofrom Steadfast Farms here in Connecticut. Thank

(13:56):
you so much for being here.Jared McCool and a big to your brother.
So I'm sorry now, Yes,I hope that you will and I
wish you nothing but success. Andof course Andy, thank you for everything
that you do and of course withGuardians Farms and Buck, we really appreciate
you and we hope to see thisgrow ctveterangrown dot org and also look for
the sign and label CT Veteran Grownin your stores