As a farmer, I know there are so many things that can happen, weather-wise or…”
Her voice trailing off, Norma Norris may well be thinking of the twists of fate that can have far graver affects on a farm family’s livelihood than do the perpetual challenges of early frost, inordinate rainfall, or shrinking profits. In January of 2004, her husband Richard “Rick” Norris was killed in a fall while on a carpentry jobsite, just one month after the Monkton couple had lost their daughter, Marion, in a car accident. Norma was left to carry on the Norris Berry Farm business as a widow, with Marion’s two young sons to raise. All within 55 days.
And while the tears still spring easily at such painful reminders of this abrupt and tragic blow, Norris perseveres day to day with a youthful lilt in her characteristic laugh and enduring sparkle in her vivid blue eyes.
The successes of Norma Norris – with Rick, and now on her own – grow from a foundation of family tradition and experience, further cultivated through a savvy sense of innovation and continuing education.
A Farmer’s Work Is Never Done
Both Norma Doane and Rick Norris grew up in Shoreham, on dairy farms. Though Rick had become an electrical engineer employed at Simmonds Precision in Vergennes, he wanted to continue farming. In 1973, the young couple heard about a farm property for sale in Monkton, which they purchased enthusiastically. “It fit the bill,” recalls Norma, though she chuckles as she notes that they didn’t feel necessarily “smart” about what they were buying: “We bought this farm” – gesturing with her hand – “that needed continual fixing up.”
Clearly they must have been smart about something, for, in just over five years, “we were named Farmers of the Year,” Norma smiles. “We had done pretty well with dairy farming.”
The Norris Dairy Farm started with a herd of approximately 50 cows. “When we sold our cows in ’96, we had 100 that we were milking, and a couple hundred in all,” Norma says.
Despite their early success, by the mid-1980s the Norris’ were examining whether they would remain in the business. “We looked at where dairying was going and, at this point, we were either going to build a new free stall and double the size of the herd – or just plain give it up,” Norma explains. “We researched all of it and realized we were going to be looking at numbers that were just about the same [yet] handling more head.” The decision: to phase out Norris Dairy Farm, while phasing in Norris Berry Farm.
“When I first started I just had my own garden,” says Norma. “I was growing some fantastic strawberries and someone said, gee, if you can grow ‘em that good you should do it commercially. I said, hmm, there’s an idea.”
In the transition from her own garden to commercial production, Norma discovered that there are significant differences. Pest problems, fungicide application, irrigation – all these are considerations that bring higher expenses, and couldn’t be done as viably on a small scale, it seemed. “I started with two acres of strawberries and my thinking was, for a long time, that’s all I would do. But then, gee, two acres wasn’t enough; there was more demand than that so we worked up to four acres of strawberries. That was all kind of a gradual thing. In the meantime I thought, well, let’s grow a few raspberries, and then farmers around me were putting in blueberries, so I decided to do that, too.”
Earlier this summer, a local paper quoted Norma predicting a great year for berries – and her prophecy has been fulfilled. The Norris Farm’s blueberries in particular flourished through August, and she expects to still have loads of them into early September. Customers mill about – some dashing in for quick farmstand purchases, or others who wisely come to bask in pick-your-own serenity, no doubt enjoying the rustle of the breeze on berry-laden bushes, and a spectacular vista of earth unfurling westward, seemingly fenced-in only by the distant pale blue Adirondacks. It’s a panorama not unlike that enjoyed in Shoreham, so it’s no wonder Rick and Norma settled on this property some thirty-odd years ago.
A customer who’s been experiencing challenges in her own garden asks Norma for advice on the issue. Norma launches easily and enthusiastically into the nuances of effective cultivation techniques. She’s an engaging and informative host and teacher; she and Rick were guest presenters at agricultural conferences and classes offered through the Extension Service for which she has the highest regard. They are the “backbone” of providing information to growers, she states.
“We have a lyme-type soil,” she tells the customer, explaining the fine balance in the Ph content that’s critical for achieving results in successful crop growing, and the long process that might be involved getting there. “Five years ago we got it down, and it took off from there,” Norma explains. “We were doing all the other things right, but if you don’t have that balance down,” she shakes her head. “These are all things you [have to] learn over time.
“I kind of feel like right now I’m close to being an expert in most all of those things,” she laughs heartily.
Looking for a Few Good Hands
While the berry business was prospering, Rick and Norma’s dairy farming was ebbing. “It was hard to find dairy help that was good help.” To the question of whether this was due to higher wage expectations or lack of interest, Norma states flatly, “[They’re] not interested in farming.”
Continuing in a sadder tone, “Most people are not interested in farming – unless they happen to have grown up on a farm and it would actually be their farm. But most people are moving away from the farm.”
Norma acknowledges that there are higher-paying jobs people can strive for than milking cows can viably pay. She agrees that most farms operating successfully in Vermont are those being run by a family team, and quickly points out that the farms out west are decidedly not family farm operations.
“I think the whole world of farming is so different in other parts of the country, like Arizona or California. In those states they don’t even have to maintain a barn – all they have to do is have something they can drive those cows to and milk them – so obviously they’re going to end up having a cheaper way of farming. Plus, there’s so much feed that’s grown in that area, that they’re just trucking the feed to the cows and those farms become more like a factory than a farm.
“I think it’s sad that someday Vermont’s going to be totally priced out of having dairy farmers here and we will lose not only the way Vermont looks, but we lose an incredible – better – source of our milk supply than if you bought it from someplace else. I see it happening. And most people would say there’s no way you can stop it, because it’s all driven by the price of things.
“I’m really not that political, [but] I have some ideas,” Norma says in relation to what she might want to convey to those seeking office currently. “The point is finding a way to support what we all agree is worthwhile… If there was some way to save family farms... In a year when people are having a tough time there’s really not a whole lot out there to help those people get through the year and get onto the next year,” she notes.
Life on the Farm Today
Fishing and biking are two of Norma’s favorite ways of spending time with her grandsons, Rick, 10, and Jack, 7 – two cyclones of motion.
Promptly replying to what his favorite thing is about living here in Monkton, Jack says brightly “The sun!” The radiance in his face leaves the impression that gloom never descends around him.
Rick’s eye, meanwhile, is always attuned to what needs fixing – for him, it’s a welcome sight more than a trial or tribulation. He knows what to do, he solemnly replies, because he watched his grandfather.
Norma recalls that her husband would tell her there was never “dead air time” when he and young Rick were out together. “I’m always trying to teach him something,” his grandfather would say.
As she contemplates the memory of her only daughter, Norma at once brushes a tear and smiles as she says of the boys, “I certainly see a lot in them of the way she was.”
Friends fondly remember Marion Norris Bodington, the 33-year old co-owner of Burlington’s Bella Vita hair salon, as an effervescent, sweet (sometimes devilish),
free spirit.
Of her grandsons, Norma says quietly, “They’re obviously the biggest part of her that we have. They’ve definitely given me a focus…”
Norma’s older grandson, Rick, would like to farm, she says. “He’s hoping I can hang in here long enough so he has an opportunity… Both of them try to help out. I’m hoping I can instill that in them because I feel anyone who comes from a farm family are the people that really can go out and they have this take-charge I-can-do-anything attitude,” she smiles.
With the upheavals in Norma’s life, she clearly proves her theory true, as she has kept hold of the reigns and continues to move her farm business forward successfully. Not that it doesn’t entail unimaginably hard work, constantly. She doesn’t feel it’s possible to do entirely on her own, however, and is quick to note that she gets help from a number of sources. Her son, Ben, is always on hand to provide anything from a mechanical repair on the tractor or Sunday morning breakfast with his new wife Alicia, as are any of the numerous Doane or Norris siblings from Shoreham, there to help.
This summer, Nora, an area high school student, was invaluable help staffing the farmstand, says Norma – in addition to the four to five employees taken on by the Norris Berry Farm each season. The veteran of the Farm team is Denzel Rankine, of Jamaica, who has worked on the Norris Farm for seven years now. Each year he arrives in the first of May and stays till the middle of October, working twelve hours daily. “He works very hard,” Norma notes gratefully.
“Truthfully, if it wasn’t for him, after my husband died, I probably wouldn’t be doing this because, if I had had to train someone else in everything he knows, it would have been pretty overwhelming,” Norma says with not a little fatigue in her voice. “He’s my number one employee,” she smiles.
A customer arrives and explains that she’s here from Brewster, NY visiting her sister in Middlebury. Her daughter, who lives in Ohio, has sent word for her mother to stop and get blueberries while in Vermont. “I asked her what I was supposed to do with them, and she said ship them overnight express to me and I’ll freeze them!” Somewhere this winter, Norris Farm blueberries will perhaps bleed their beautiful inky blue into a heap of pancakes in the Midwest. It will no doubt be worth everyone’s effort.
“A farmer, in general, takes a lot of chances,” Norma concludes. “I’ve been really, really fortunate this year – I can say that I’m not going to have a big fall raspberry crop but I’ve had three great crops all summer long – great strawberry crop, great raspberry crop in the summer, and the blueberries….! I don’t have a lot to complain about, you can’t get everything in life – I don’t think anyone can,” she smiles. “It’s gonna work out fine.”
