Ledge Haven Farm might be one of those Vermont farms that would be most likely to end up on a postcard. The place is just about everything you would think of when you put the words Vermont and agriculture together. The 550-acre farm, owned by brothers Tom and Mike Audet, is a family-run dairy and maple sugaring operation located near the idyllic shores of Lake Champlain, just down the road from historic Mount Independence in Orwell, Vermont.<\/p>\n
The Audet brothers have been in business together since 1972, having been raised on a farm just down the road that is still operated by yet another Audet brother. \u201cWe have been making pure Vermont Maple Syrup for over 40 years right here on our farm,\u201d says Tom Audet. \u201cIt is an Audet family tradition with three generations of our family pitching in to make the final product,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The brothers manage their risk using one of the gold medal standard rules of modern agriculture: Diversify. The brothers milk 270 dairy cows, attend to another 280 young stock and breeding stock, manage 450 acres of corn, hay and alfalfa, as well as tapping hundreds of maple trees on the 50 wooded acres of the property. \u201cDiversifying is our first line of defense in managing risk, and crop insurance is the second,\u201d said Audet.<\/p>\n