Happy holidays, from our family to yours!

We are so honored to be a part of this community; producing milk that ends up in our local grocery stores, baking cakes to celebrate birthdays, graduations, and other milestones, and preparing desserts for your holiday table. This December, as you order holiday party platters, stock up on Cabot products for baking, or pick out the perfect, local balsam wreath, we thank you for your patronage this year and for including us in your holiday celebrations.

The last day to place an order for Christmas Eve pick up is coming up quickly: Monday, December 18 (before 4pm). Give us a call (413-586-2142) or drop on by to place your holiday orders. Here is a quick list of some holiday favorites! Yes, we will accommodate special orders. We’ll also have some extra goodies leading up to the holiday too for last minute office gatherings or tasty gifts.

Speaking of gifts, we have a variety of beautiful handmade crafts from local artisans, gift certificates to your neighborhood dairy farm, and a whole new set of colors of Barstow Tiny Fan tees and onesies. For the foodie, stuff stockings with local maple syrup, honey, granola, popcorn, and local beer and wine. Or give the gift of Barstow’s farm raised beef! We have premium steaks and roasts to browse or snag a Barstow Beef Bundle, packaged and ready for the meat-lover in your life.

You might also consider gifting, and/or signing up your own household, for the Barstow’s 2024 Soup CSA: 8 weeks of homemade soup and easy delicious meals! We are accepting orders now! Last day to sign up is January 8.

Christmas comes early

Without the tower silo on the farm, our holiday star has landed on the slurry storage tank. It sure makes this utilitarian structure on the farm a lot more… festive! Our tower silo came down this July to make way for a new shed for our sawdust (sawdust is used for cow bedding). In place of the old sawdust storage will soon be a kitchen for cows!

Not to worry, we won’t be asking the cows to make their own breakfast! But for a change, we won’t be making it either. Beginning next year, robots will be mixing up forage and feed for our productive herd.

We are committed to embracing best practices and technology that sustain our goals of providing the highest quality care for our girls. The Lely Vector automatic feeding system will drop fresh feed in front of the cows throughout the day that is perfectly prepared for the groups’ lactation cycle and dietary needs. This system is an investment in farm efficiency but also in animal health, nutrition, comfort, and therefore, milk quality too.

Christmas came early for the farmers, the Vectors were delivered this week! Although, all of the equipment needed to get this system in action won’t be off the production line and installed on the farm until probably April. We look forward to updating everyone on the benefits of this system once it is working come spring.

Santa Claus comes early this year too! You can meet Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the Hadley Fire Department next Saturday, December 16 when they stop at Barstow’s Dairy Store and Bakery around noon. We’ll have milk and cookies ready for the Big Guy in Red and, of course, plenty to share with our visitors too!

Barstow’s is currently open 6am-4pm on the weekdays, 8am-4pm on the weekends. New this year, we are taking our winter break between Christmas and New Year’s Day (rather than in January as we had previously). If you were planning on prepared foods for visiting family or goodies from the case, we would recommend loading up prior to Christmas Eve. We look forward to serving you in the new year!

Here are our holiday hours:
Mon. Dec 18 – last day for holiday orders
Sun. Dec. 24 – 8am-3pm
Dec. 25 – through Jan. 3 – CLOSED
Thurs. Jan. 4 – 6am-3pm, back open for 2024 woohoo!
Mon. Jan. 8 – the last day to sign up for the Soup CSA

Have a joyous, warm, and safe holiday season! We look forward to seeing you at Barstow’s Dairy Store and Bakery in the weeks ahead and in the New Year – we are open year round!