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1 week ago | 
farmanddairy.com | Sara Welch
MOGADORE, Ohio — Nestled in a valley off of Waterloo Road in Suffield Township, Adolph Tree Farm has quietly sustained its family’s farming legacy in Portage County, Ohio. Aside from the old wooden sign advertising the types of trees sold there, there isn’t much indication of the oasis that lies about 500 yards below, at the bottom of a hill that gently slopes downward and ends at a small creek. “We’re fortunate for a lot of reasons. One, it’s in a valley, so people in a way don’t know we’re here.
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1 week ago | 
farmanddairy.com | Sara Welch
AUSTINTOWN, Ohio — Ruth Capper, president of the National Cookie Cutter Collector’s Club, milled through her collection of over 10,000 antique cookie cutters of all shapes, sizes and types, explaining who made each one and where she acquired them just a month ahead of the upcoming National Cookie Cutter Collector’s Club Convention. Capper’s collection spans decades, dating back to the 1930s.
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2 months ago | 
farmanddairy.com | Sara Welch
ROOTSTOWN, Ohio — It all started with a short red and white bull that was on display at the 2011 Ohio Beef Expo. “One family had a little bull. He was 6 months old, and his name was Elmer Stud. I fell in love with the little guy,” said Bob Grudosky. Elmer Stud traveled from KP Ranch in Tekamah, Nebraska to strut his stuff in Columbus, Ohio, where he caught Bob’s eye. It must have been fate. Bob had only learned about the merits of Miniature Herefords a few months earlier when a friend bought some.
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2 months ago | 
farmanddairy.com | Sara Welch
SALEM, Ohio — Paul Harvey lived a full life, wearing many hats in his 80 years in Coolspring, Pennsylvania, where he spent most of his life in the house he grew up in. He was a boy practicing his clarinet on his front porch — much to his neighbor’s dismay. He was a college kid selling Compton’s Encyclopedias door to door. He was an avid collector of early gas engines in western Pennsylvania.
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Mar 6, 2025 | 
farmanddairy.com | Sara Welch
ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Sitting in Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl — a downtown meeting spot as quintessential to Zanesville as she is — Dorothy Montgomery casually detailed the history of the quaint restaurant, pointing out founder Jack Hemmer’s portrait proudly displayed on the back wall and explaining the local origins of the mainstay’s offerings. In no hurry to order, she kindly asked the waitress for more time to look at the menu — not that she needed it.
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Feb 14, 2025 | 
farmanddairy.com | Sara Welch
MASSILLON, Ohio — Shandy Myers has dedicated over 15,000 hours and rehabilitated hundreds of animals by volunteering for Stark Parks’ Wildlife Conservation Center over the last 12 years. Caring for injured and abandoned wildlife, especially Virginia opossums, has become a lifestyle. From the considerable home care center her husband Jay built her to her decal-covered car and “OPOSSUM” license plate, Shandy’s passion for her work is evident in every aspect of her life.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
farmanddairy.com | Sara Welch
SALEM, Ohio — Jim Abrams poured a lifetime love of the outdoors into writing “A Crusade for Conservation,” a 389-page book detailing the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife’s 150-year history. If you enjoy — or you know someone who enjoys — his outdoors column that runs in the Rural Marketplace section of Farm and Dairy each week, “A Crusade for Conservation” might make the perfect gift this Christmas season.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
farmanddairy.com | Sara Welch
MANTUA, Ohio — Blair and Karen Kotkowski consider themselves lucky, even though a fire just devastated their meat goat operation and destroyed their barn. It could have been worse. Blair had been in the barn cleaning bins less than an hour before the fire started. “We were very lucky,” Karen said. “He would have been in there, dragging goats out, getting smoke inhalation and all that.”The Kotkowskis’ main barn — formerly a dairy barn with 56 tie-stalls — burned down Oct. 31.
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Nov 14, 2024 | 
farmanddairy.com | Sara Welch
Editor’s Note: This is the final part of a series detailing the Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton relief efforts of Farm and Dairy Managing Editor Sara Welch and her childhood best friend Jessica Malek. Dear Herma,I have dreamt about your house almost every night since returning home. Sometimes, it’s not quite your house. Sometimes, it’s just a house in disrepair, and I wander around it feeling lost, anxious and trapped. Is that how you felt? I felt like that in your house. I felt lost.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
farmanddairy.com | Sara Welch
Editor’s Note: This is the third part of a series detailing the Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton relief efforts of Farm and Dairy Managing Editor Sara Welch and her childhood best friend Jessica Malek. Jess and I traveled all day, through North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia and into Florida on Saturday, Oct. 12. We planned gas stops and filled up before pumps ran dry near Citra, Florida around 7:30 p.m. — over 136 miles from St. Petersburg.
