Hi, I am Margaret Aiken, owner of Flower Gap Farm. I am a first-generation, second career farmer. I purchased my first goats in 2014 for no other reason than I thought they were cute. With a background in horticulture, I had dreamed of one day owning a flower farm but never considered goat farming as a career opportunity. In 2016, I bred my first goats and once I tasted the milk, a small spark ignited. I had never tasted milk so creamy and delicious and wondered how people didn’t know about this! In the years that followed, I continued to grow my herd and learned all that I could about animal husbandry and the goat dairy industry. I learned that most people consider Nigerian Dwarf goats to not be an economically viable breed for a commercial dairy, which is why I couldn’t find many (or any) products made from their milk. Despite the many knowledgeable people that told me it couldn’t be done, the spark continued to burn within me and the voice grew louder inside of my head and heart that echoed….I think I can make this work.

In 2020, as everyone hunkered down, I quietly started selling raw milk, yogurt and cheese from a fridge in my garage. To be clear, this was not a licensed operation. I was selling to friends and neighbors on what I like to call the “grey market”. Word grew fast, as good things tend to do in a small town, and before I knew it, I was drumming up quite the business and attracting more attention that felt comfortable. One thing was clear, people loved the product and the demand was there. In 2021, I paused the “grey market” dairy operation and focused my energy on finding a farm that I could turn into a licensed dairy.

While working full time as a property caretaker, I spent my evenings and weekends crafting my business plan, shopping for farms and running numbers until I couldn’t see straight. It became obvious that if I was going to make this work, I was going to have to do it differently. This breed of goat doesn’t make enough milk to make selling fluid milk a viable business, so I was going to have to do the processing on farm and knew I would need to find a way to make my product stand out. At this point, land prices had skyrocketed and it felt impossible to find something in my budget. Obstacle after obstacle were thrown in front of me, but that small spark had turned into a raging fire and there was no way that I wasn’t going to become a goat farmer now.

In October of 2023, I read a listing on Vermont Land Link, a website that links landowners and farmers. The farm was a property a few miles from me, one that I had often driven by and wondered how that big barn was being used. The property, known as Windy Corners, was owned by Roelof Boumans and Tiny Sikkes and they were searching for someone to farm and help maintain the property as they aged in place on the farm. I was initially hesitant, this was not the farm situation I had been dreaming of for nearly a decade, but the connection between us felt organic and easy, so we continued to talk through the details. By March of 2024, we were all on board and excited about what the future held for the farm. Renovations began in April 2024, and the goats arrived at the new farm in October, I moved in a month or so later (and also left my full-time employment and became a full-time farmer!) and the farm became a licensed grade A dairy in June of 2025.

With one successful season under my belt, I am still very much figuring things out. I do know that I love raising goats and producing clean healthy food for others to enjoy. I know that people love the product and there is a demand for it, that inner voice was not wrong. I am focused on moving with intention through the next few years, focusing on finding the right scale that can help to create a better life balance than traditionally associated with dairy farming. I am not there yet but am looking forward to every step of the journey ahead.