Miracle Springs Farm
A Hudson Valley farm built around community, sustainability and goats
Miracle Springs Farm is a small goat dairy located in Gallatin. Owner Jaimie Cloud and her husband, David Levine, have been hard at work restoring the barns and soil on the farm, working with Rene DeLeeuw, Lead Farmer and Goatman, building the goat herd, keeping bees, building spreadsheets, building a customer base, and generally doing what it takes to keep the family farm tradition alive.
“This truly is a family affair,” according to Cloud. “Both our adult children believe in what we are doing and help out on the farm or at the farmer’s markets when they can.”
The farmers markets (Millerton plus four markets in NYC) are where cheese-lovers can buy the seven types of goat cheese that Miracle Springs Farm produces. It sold its first batch in March of 2018. Since then, Miracle Springs Farm has developed over 175 wholesale customers including restaurants, grocers, coops and farm stores throughout the Northeast including New York City. The cheeses are also available online at miraclespringsfarm.com.
The farm-fresh cheeses are produced at nearby Chaseholm Farm where master cheesemaker Rory Chase works his magic. Miracle Springs’ chèvre logs are available in plain (called Simply Chèvre), rolled in organic Tellicherry peppercorns, or rolled in “everything” like an everything bagel–sans the bagel. Signal Rock is the most popular cheese featuring a line of ash made from charred beet leaves. (See the article in Wine Spectator Fall 2019.) Roe Jan Reserve is a hard Tomme style cheese made from raw goat’s milk and aged over 60 days. The Camembert style cheese is luscious and the newest cheese, FaultLine, is a Tallegio style. All the cheeses are terroir, produced locally using Miracle Springs Farm goat’s milk and local labor.
Jaimie Cloud’s first exposure to farming was on Quig’s, her family’s apple orchard in Mundelein, Illinois. Here in Columbia County, Miracle Springs Farm utilizes sustainable farming practices. Cloud is the Founder and
President of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education. David Levine is CEO of the American Sustainability Council. Regenerative principles and practices are second nature to this farming couple.
“This has been a community effort,” says Cloud. “From our employees to our collaboration with Chaseholm Farm to our loyal customers, we could not have done this without help.”
That includes financial assistance. In 2019, Miracle Springs Farm was in need of capital to make improvements to the farm, including its milk house. It approached CEDC with a plan for necessary improvements, including a budget and a timeline.
“Jaimie Cloud and her team were very organized,” according to Martha Lane, Business Development Specialist at CEDC. “They were also working with Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corporation (HVADC), which was important to our loan committee.” The loan was approved in 2019 and the farm is in full production now.
Miracle Springs Farm collaborates with Taste of NY, Farms 2 Tables, Marty’s Local and Hudson Valley Harvest to aggregate and distribute its products to wholesale customers. The business offers a CSA cheese club and is featured in other farms’ CSA offerings, such as mamafarm.us.
For details and to enroll in Miracle Springs Farm Cheese Club, please click here. To order a set of cheeses from Cheese Grotto, click here.