The Faces at Shtayburne Farm
Who owns Shtayburne Farm?
Who does the work?
Whose responsible for what?
In this blog post I’m going to try to answer these questions. Our farm is a joint effort for sure and one of us could not do it alone. You may have talked to different people on the farm or received emails from different people and been a bit confused. I’ll lay out here who does what now although it’s a constantly evolving thing depending what works best at the time. We may have to update this many times 🙂
First we have our parents: Mark & Mary Ellen Hostetler
They have been farming most of their lives. They farmed in south east Pa for the first years of their marriage. Later on they owned a farm in Northern NY near Watertown. They purchased this farm and started farming here in 2004. It was pretty run down and neglected when they purchased it and not an active dairy farm so they have put a lot of time and effort into it to get it to where it is today. They were very supportive when we wanted to start the cheese shop in 2010 even though they might have thought we were a bit crazy and probably questioned our sanity. We could not have done it without them. Today Mark manages most of the field work and helps with milking and pretty much anything else that needs done around the farm.
Next we have :Lorin & Alicia Hostetler
Lorin is Mark & Mary Ellen’s second son. Lorin was the one who had the vision to start the cheese shop in the beginning. When we started in 2010 Lorin and I (Alicia) were running the cheese shop full time. Lorin was making all the cheese and I was helping with packaging, running the retail shop, etc. If I’m remembering correctly we hired our first employee in fall of 2011 so for a bit there it was just the two of us. It was an exhausting time but I have good memories of working together 24 7. We operated this way until 2019. Lorin and I ran the cheese shop and Mark was running the farm with some help from Lorin’s younger brother Hans.
In 2019 things changed quite a bit. Hans moved away so Mark needed more help on the farm. Lorin’s brother Lance was working a day job at the time and he offered to quit that and pitch in and help out with the cheese shop. Lorin had always enjoyed the outdoors and the animals so he decided to switch back over to working with the cows and let Lance take over the cheese shop.
Before this Mark was sole owner of the farm and Lorin the cheese shop. Over this time we did the paper work to change things around and now Lorin, Mark, and Lance own the farm and cheese shop jointly. Change is always hard and it’s not been without it’s challenges but we are learning how to communicate and work together. More people involved means more ideas and inspiration but it also means sometimes your vision is not all the same 🙂
At this point Lorin is the herd manager and cares for the cows and well as anything else that needs done. He wears a lot of hats somedays and he is still involved some with the management of the cheese shop.
I sort of help wherever is needed. I’ve changed job descriptions quite a number of times over the years. Right now I help with milking some and do our marketing.
Our boys are getting to the point where they are a big help on the farm and we would be lost without them. Brandt is 14 and Damian is soon going to be 12. They help with pretty much every aspect of the farming and last year Damian was helping some in the retail store. He really enjoyed it so you might be seeing more of him in the future.
Last but not least we have: Lance and Marlisa Hostetler
I’ve already mentioned Lance’s role a bit. Lance is Mark & Mary Ellen’s 3rd son. He joined us in 2019 and took over the cheese making and running the shop. He is the creative, inventive one of the bunch and he is behind a lot of the recipes we serve in our store. The cheese and ice cream flights were his idea and he is also the one who crafted our delicious mac and cheese that we serve. I’m sure we will see more from him in the future. He is working on some new things we will hopefully be releasing this year.
His wife Marlisa has helped out quite a bit as well. Especially over 2020 Lance and Marlisa pretty much ran everything themselves. Marlisa helped out a lot in the store and was our ice cream maker when we started that project. After their daughter Brooklyn was born she has stepped back but you might still see her there occasionally.
We have a few employees that help us as well . We may have to do an introductory post of them sometime this summer if they are willing to put their faces on here. They do a wonderful job of taking care of you when you come to our farm store and also do a lot of boring behind the scenes stuff like packaging and labeling.
We love what we do – working with the land to make good, nutritious food for you. Sometimes farming can be hard and you really question why you are doing this and then there are beautiful sunrises over the lake, picnics in the field with the family, the fresh air and sunshine of country living, and the privilege of all working together each day and then I wouldn’t have it any other way.
