Photos by Little Outdoor Giants

Marlo Stein caught the farming bug at 16. Everything she cared about— working outside with her hands and body, sustainability, social justice—it all came together during a semester on the Maine coast, away from her suburban home.

She met Archer Meier on the Smith College rugby team, and the pair have been together since. After graduating, the couple bounced between the Midwest, where Meier is from, and Stein’s native Massachusetts, working on farms and honing their skills. Meier loved working with animals, Stein with flowers. Early in the pandemic, they were running a small farm on leased land outside Northampton, idly scrolling real estate listings for available farmland, when they found their dream farm listed—but they didn’t really think they were ready to buy a farm.

When Pam and Ray Robinson decided to retire, their Hardwick dairy farm had been in the family for five generations. They’d found success adding a creamery to the century-old dairy; their certified organic raw milk cheeses won awards. Robinson Farm was everything Stein and Meier wanted—a gorgeous old farmhouse, established pasture. Even cheesemaking infrastructure was already there. “It all just fell into place.”

Last year Stein and Meier purchased 40 of the farm’s 200 acres, including the farmhouse and barn, some woodland and some fields. They’re leasing additional pasture from the Robinsons, who still live just down the road, dropping in to chat or pick up a wheel of their last batch of cheese from the aging room. The former owners’ mentorship has been invaluable to Round Table Farm; they’ve shared advice, walked the young farmers through cheese recipes and introduced the “proud, queer Jewish farmers” to the community. The reception has been nothing but positive.

“The Hardwick community is amazing because it’s such an agricultural community,” says Stein. “People just want to see young farmers coming in with a desire to keep that history alive; it’s a really big deal in this community. That’s been super helpful.”

For now, the dairy barn is empty—Stein and Meier kept just two of the Robinsons’ herd. They made the decision to drop the organic certification and haul milk from other local dairies, allowing them to move at a measured pace as they learn the ropes, to engage with other local farmers and to focus on revenue-producing work they enjoy, like cheesemaking and flowers.

“In terms of cheese,” says Stein, “we’re making a recipe that the Robinsons had been making that was a softer, Taleggio-style cheese. They called it Arpeggio. We’ve rebranded our version as Sweet Pea. And we’ve added a Manchego that we’re in the process of aging. That recipe was from the farmer that Archer worked with in Wisconsin. This summer we’re bringing in another alpine cheese that the Robinsons had been making that we just started making this week and it was our favorite of the ones that they made, so we’re very excited to bring that back in.”

They transitioned a section of pasture to grow a quarter acre of annuals last year, with hopes to incrementally expand the plot and add perennials. In the coming years, they’ll build their herd of cows and add goats, who can scramble through the more rugged terrain and eat anything—a good “cleanup crew” for the property. Eventually, they plan to sell raw cow milk onsite and make mixed-milk cheeses, moving deliberately at each step, carefully stewarding the land.

“This is a really big deal to us,” says Meier. “As much as it is a really big deal to the Robinsons and a really big deal to the community, it’s also a really big deal to us. And it’s not something that we’re taking lightly in any way. We intend to be here for the rest of our lives.”

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This story appeared in the Spring 2022 issue.