Feed me
Book bans
Snowfall marks return to bird feeding season
Zuckerman leads tour on growing trend
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Page 6
Volume 52 Number 49
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shelburnenews.com
December 7, 2023
CVSD questions BLM flag COREY MCDONALD STAFF WRITER
He’d never stop working with cheese. “From the perspective of a cheesemaker I would say it was much more exciting and interesting to work with milk that way and be part of that operation,” he said. Since 1980, Shelburne Farms has made an artisanal cheddar. Every day beginning at 8 a.m., the cheesemakers turn fresh milk into raw milk cheddar using just four ingredients: the milk from the pasture-raised herd of Brown Swiss cows, starter culture, rennet and salt. Knowing the farmer behind the dairy
School board members with the Champlain Valley School District are questioning whether to keep a Black Lives Matter flag raised at its schools and instead raise an “original CVSD inclusive flag.” Since the summer of 2020 — in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis — each of the district’s schools in Williston, Hinesburg, Charlotte and Shelburne have kept a Black Lives Matter flag raised to show “support and love for our Black students and caregivers and employees,” board chair Angela Arsenault, of Williston, said. The district at the time received a signed letter from dozens of employees in the district asking the board to raise the flag at all schools. When the board voted to raise BLM flags, “we knew that we were lifting up support for one specific marginalized community with very good reason,” Arsensault said. “Has much changed as a result of that racial reckoning? I would argue not really,” she said. “So, the circumstances under which the flags were raised remain. We want to continue to show support and love for our Black students and caregivers and employees.” Since the flag’s raising, however, the district “knew that we did not know how or when or why we would ever then take those flags down,” Arsenault said. “I think this is one idea ... that we might pursue in order to lift up that same community as well as others at the same time.” But, she added, it is “something that that needs to be addressed with great care, and through an inclusive process.” While Arsenault noted the suggestion was raised earlier this year in smaller committee conversations, recent public
See SHELBURNE FARMS on page 10
See FLAG on page 13
PHOTO BY LIBERTY DARR
Sam Dixon, Shelburne Farms’ dairy manager since 1996, gives a loving pat to one of the cows in the farm’s Brown Swiss herd, Ally Jean, one of the few cows that recognizes her name and Dixon’s call.
Family legacy thrives at Shelburne Farms LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
Shelburne Farms holds a special place in the hearts of many, but for the Dixon family, the farm has been an integral part of the family’s legacy for two generations. The story begins over four decades ago in Dummerston with two brothers, Peter and Sam Dixon, whose knack for craftsmanship and love for cows coalesced under a small family-owned business specializing in artisan cheesemaking. “It was funny because Sam liked to milk the cows and I would help my mom make cheese in the kitchen,” Peter said. “The
commercial cheesemaking began in 1983 when my family started a cheese business on our dairy farm that was called the Guilford Cheese Company.” The family business was relatively short-lived and in 1991 Peter attended the University of Vermont to pursue a degree in dairy food science where he quickly learned about Shelburne Farms. He took a job as the farm’s first assistant cheesemaker and discovered that the farm’s raw milk cheddar operation was much different than the pasteurized milk operation he mastered on his family’s farm. Nonetheless, the work was fulfilling and confirmed something he already knew deep down: