The last time David Silloway expanded the dairy operation on his farm in Randolph Center was in 1967. Just out of college, he and his father added 50 feet onto the barn so it could house 65 milkers instead of 44. In the decades since, when milk processors pressed farmers to get ever bigger or get out of the business, the Silloways stayed small. Ironically, that may be the secret to their solvency today.

"This number feels like enough for how much cropland we have," David says. In 2000, David sold his land's development rights to Vermont Land Trust, using the money he raised to buy 107 adjoining acres. Today, the farm owns a total of 340 acres and rents another 260, although much of it is wooded. David's partner, son John, and nephew Paul Lambert agree they do not want to get larger. "If we want to make more money, we do something else," David states. The "something else" encompasses a range of sidelines, from selling firewood to syrup jugs, a dealership David inherited from his father, who was director of the state Sugarmakers Association in the 1970s. With a gray beard that flows onto his plaid wool shirt, David sits at his kitchen table beside an antique wood-fired cookstove and directs the diverse operation Silloway Farm has become. In the space of an hour, he'll have a customer stop in to buy syrup jugs; the farm's consulting forester come by to talk about marking trees; and in-person updates from John and Paul. David also hires himself out to a neighboring farm, driving their tractors when they need seasonal help.

"I can ride a tractor 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, I enjoy it so much," he says. David's wife of 14 years, Lynne Gately, originally from Boston, works full time as a librarian. "She doesn't understand why I work the same long hours for neighbors as for myself," David comments. "I stay until the job's done."

"I married him knowing, of course, he has to work long hours, seven days a week, because that's what farming is," Lynne says later in a phone interview. "But it's hard for me to understand why he'd want to take a second job when he didn't have to for financial reasons. He just loves to work."

Outside the kitchen window, beyond the white-board-fenced barnyard, a snow machine kicks up a cloud as it roars up a steep hill in the distance. It's Paul on his way to a woodlot. The farm harvested 260 cords of wood in 2009 and 100,000 board feet of logs in 2010. They also sell horse hay and make maple syrup. But it's milk that has been the farm's focus since David's folks moved here from Montpelier in 1940. And it's milk that has recently brought Silloway Farm a small measure of fame, earning David the title of 2009 Farmer of the Year from the Vermont Farm Bureau.

"I'm assuming it was because of our high herd production and lack of debt," David says. Maximizing milk production per cow is the farm's goal, and the Silloway Holsteins rank among the top 15 farms in the state for milk production. Does the small size of the herd have anything to do with that?

"Yes, there's probably less stress on cows in smaller groups," David answers. "And the cows are healthier because they get grass in the summer and baled hay along with chopped silage in the winter. The long fibers are good for them." Silloway's cows are pastured in the summer and go outside for at least an hour a day in the winter. "The exercise keeps them healthier," David says. The Silloways' barn is fitted with bovine mattresses—padded mats meant to simulate lying down in a field. It all adds up to the farm's daily average of 80 lbs. of milk per cow—without the stimulus of the hormone Rbst. "We never did use it," David says. "If cows are bred properly, fed properly, and taken care of properly, they can make just as much milk without it."

The second big factor in the farm's success is the family's attitude toward debt. Although forced to borrow money for operating expenses in 2009, when milk prices plummeted to $11 per hundredweight, the Silloways paid the loan back quickly and have maintained a debt-free operation before and since. "We're pretty careful not to buy something if we can't pay cash for it," David says. "We've only bought one new tractor in the last 30 years." If a tractor breaks down, David borrows or rents one from his neighbors to get him by until his own is back up and running. The farm does its own repairs as much as possible, but their newest tractor "has to have a laptop plugged into it for diagnostics" and has to be trucked to Swanton to be worked on.

John and Paul bring other hidden assets to the family operation. Paul, for example, appears to have boundless energy. "He's the workaholic of the family, David says. "He goes a hundred miles an hour, and John and I try to keep up with him." Besides manning the farm's forestry operation, doing a lot of the morning milking, and helping with other chores, Paul took on the job of updating the farm's sugaring equipment and methods, adding a powerful vacuum pump for one thing. For two years in a row he doubled the number of gallons of syrup produced here—from 300 gallons to 600 and then to 1,200.

In 2007, Paul was in his second year at Johnson and Wales College, studying business management and criminal justice, when he decided what he really wanted to do was farming. His timing was perfect. "The same week John left for college, I found out Paul wanted to come here and work," says David.

Paul comes into the kitchen briefly, wearing green canvas coveralls. He's been working outside in single-digit temperatures for several hours but stays inside only long enough to touch base with his uncle and to answer a few questions. What does he like about farming? "I like being able to make my own hours and do what I want," he says. "And just being able to do different things every day instead of being tied down to the same job."

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