VERNON-The sky was blue, the clouds were white and low, the trees were showing their best fall colors, the vast meadows were still verdant, and the breeze was blowing gently on the organic Miller Farm in Vernon on Oct. 4, where well over 150 people gathered to celebrate Paul Miller’s 90th birthday.
Even the small herd of Holsteins grazing in a field above the party appeared content and celebratory.
A white tent with seats was provided in case the weather refused to cooperate, but the sun was shining and children were running around everywhere. Most of the guests filled their plates with locally sourced cheeses, doughnuts, slices of pecan, apple or blueberry pie, and popcorn, and ate while standing outside and chatting with neighbors. They drank local apple cider and, of course, Miller Farm milk.
The birthday boy, Paul Miller, is not only a successful third-generation dairy farmer but an esteemed professional photographer. One of his photos was the first wraparound cover that Vermont Life magazine ever printed. The photo of Fair Winds Farm in Brattleboro in winter was the cover of the winter 1990 issue.
That cover, along with other cover shots he took, were on display in the tent, along with a number of farming awards.
“I never made a lot of money on photography, but it was a good hobby that got me away from the farm to go places,” Paul said, standing near the opening of the tent with a camera hanging around his neck.
He laughed when asked what it was like getting old.
“I tell everybody, I’m 80 years old from my knees up, and 100 years old from the knees down,” he said.
A long legacy
In 1916, Paul Miller’s great-grandfather, Arthur Lyman Miller, purchased the farm on Fort Bridgman Road; it celebrated its 100th birthday in 2016.
Paul grew up on several farms, but when he was young, farming was not in his plans for the future.
“The family has been been here since I was a kid,” he said. “But I spent the first seven years of my life up to Dummerston. My dad managed the Bunker Farm. Then we went for eight months down to Florida.”
A family member there had a business but no children to give it to. They also owned a lot of real estate. They wanted to turn their business over to Paul’s family.
“And we’d have been rich if we’d stayed there, because the land got valuable later on,” Paul said. “But it was hot and we hated the humidity in May and June. We couldn’t wait to get back to Vermont. So we came back here in 1945, and I went through high school through the system here.” He was a 1954 graduate of Brattleboro High School.
He said he thought he’d come back to farm, “but then when I got into school, I enjoyed biology. I ended up with a master’s degree in zoology.”
Paul believed he would make teaching his career.
“I enjoyed teaching,” he said. “I taught a lot of labs when I was a student. But basically, my eyes gave out. This eye here went completely black. I couldn’t see a thing. I had headaches. So I kind of backed off on that. Then I had a scholarship at Washington State University to work on a doctorate, but when I got into it my eyes just wouldn’t take it. I called my dad and my brother, and I said, ‘Hey, any chance I can come back to the farm?’”
That was in 1962. His father, J. Maynard Miller, was looking to sell and immediately turned it over to Paul. Then he worked for his son for another 35 years.
“My father drove a tractor until he was 91,” Paul said. “He died when he was 92. My boys [Arthur and Peter Miller] came back to the farm on June 1, 1998.”
J. Maynard Miller died early in the morning on June 1, 1998.
“He lived long enough to know that the boys were coming back,” Paul said.
The hardest part of running a farm is the economics, he said.
“If it weren’t for Vermont Yankee, we would have really struggled,” he said, referring to the now-decommissioned nuclear power plant situated right across the road. ”They paid so much in taxes that our taxes were low. One of the high points of my life was when Yankee wanted to put a power line up along the river and needed a right-of-way.”
Paul negotiated a price for the right-of-way with Yankee that paid off his mortgage.
“I came home from that negotiation out of debt,” he said. “And that gave us a tremendous advantage. Most farms are 25%-to-100% in debt.”
A 67-year partnership
Paul and his wife, Mary, 87, will celebrate their 67th anniversary in December.
“I loved being a farm wife,” Mary said. “I really enjoyed it because we had three meals a day together. And I could send the kids to the barn on a rainy day to ride their trikes.“
But, she said, she “wasn’t a natural.“
“I felt sorry for the cows when I even tried to milk them,” Mary continued. “I was willing, but I wasn’t really good on the equipment. I broke things, and I felt like I cost Paul more than I contributed. So I ran the household and kept the books and did payroll. I used to tell people that he made the money, and I spent it.”
Paul and Mary have three children: a daughter, Fawn Gagnon, who lives away from the farm and two sons, Arthur and Peter Miller, who now have a majority ownership and are the fourth generation to manage the farm. Their children make the fifth generation.
“When the boys came back to the farm, they had nothing to contribute but their youth and their energy, which is what Paul had to contribute when we came back,” Mary said. “Paul’s family was wonderful to us when we were young marrieds.
“We’ve been so blessed. There are farms that don’t exist anymore because one generation wasn’t nice to the next generation. Or they didn’t think the next generation was smart enough. Or, like many farms I’ve known, two brothers couldn’t manage together, or their wives couldn’t get along.
“But our two sons live across the yard from each other and they’ve gotten along, which is to me amazing,” Mary continued. “I’m not sure I could have done it, but they have and I give them all sorts of credit.”
Mary said the people of Vernon have been very supportive.
“It’s not easy when you need to get to work and you get behind a tractor on the road,” Mary Miller said. “But Vernon is very farmer-friendly.”
Paul is no longer milking, Mary said.
“He gave that up a couple of years ago,” Mary Miller said. “Now he takes good care of the trash on the farm, and I’m just as proud of him as when he ran the farm. He’s a humble man, and he’ll do whatever is needed.”
Thriving in an uncertain time
The Miller Farm stretches over approximately 700 acres, according to son Arthur.
“We own a little over 300 and lease another 300,” he said, noting that the land “includes some of the Retreat Farm, and some acreage over in Brattleboro and Hinsdale, New Hampshire.”
The Miller Farm employs 15 people full- and part-time and is well-known in the state for bottling exceptionally high-quality milk and chocolate milk; the milk is sold in supermarkets and specialty stores and is served at the University of Vermont as well as in schools around Windham County.
“A lot of people are buying it,” Arthur said. “We bottle 15% of what we milk.”
The farm milks 250 cows.
“We have 270 mature cows and about 150 young stock,” Arthur said. “We raise replacement cows. So about 420 cows altogether.”
That is a lot of cows and a lot of milk.
“We’re shipping 3,600 pounds every two days,” Arthur said. “It’s a lot of bottles. I know how I do it, but why is often the better question.”
But coming back to the farm was the best decision he ever made, he said.
“The family, the lifestyle, the community!” Arthur said. “Farms are such a huge part of the town of Vernon.”
‘It’s what Vermont is all about’
Some of the notables in attendance were U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., with her family and Brattleboro Selectboard Vice Chair Amanda Ellis-Thurber, a fellow organic farmer.
U.S. Sen. Peter Welch and Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Anson Tebbetts sent congratulatory video messages.
One of Tebbetts’ predecessors, Roger Allbee, who served as Vermont secretary of agriculture from 2007 to 2010, was there.
“The Paul Miller Farm is the epitome of the future of dairy farming in Vermont,” Allbee, of Townshend, told The Commons. “They’ve been here for 114 years, they’ve gone organic, they bottle their milk, they’re sustainable, and the whole family is involved in farming. It’s what Vermont is all about.”
At the party, after celebratory remarks about Paul made in person and by video call, Arthur led the partygoers in singing the 17th-century Christian doxology “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.”
Then the guests went back to eating, chatting, basking in the sunlight, and taking hayrides up to the high meadow.
And the children kept running around.
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.