That’s because they don’t want to be there when the roughly 100 cattle as well as machinery and equipment hit the auction block July 8.
“It would just be too hard to watch,” Saceric-Clark said of her reason for leaving the dairy farm on the day of the auction. “Barring a miracle, it’s happening.”
Then she said of the cattle, “We just hope they go to nice places.”
The auction at the farm follows several years of bankruptcy proceedings for the Clarks. That process ended a few months ago, clearing the way for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency to call in its $150,000 loan.
To pay off that loan, the cows, machinery and equipment will be sold in what the auction company is advertising as a “complete Cattle & Machinery Dispersal.”
The machinery and equipment — including three tractors and haying equipment — will go first, with that auction set for 10:30 a.m. That will be followed at 12:30 p.m. by the sale of the cattle.
Patrick Freeman, FSA loan service director in Vermont, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa A.D. Ranaldo, who has represented the Farm Service Agency in the matter, could not be reached Thursday for comment.
Hosking Sales of New Berlin, New York, is performing the auction. Tom Hosking, sales manager and auctioneer, declined to comment Thursday.
Saceric-Clark said that with money raised through an online campaign she hopes to have funds to keep some of the young cattle stock, as well as at least enough equipment to keep up on maintenance at the farm, such as a mower, baler and wagon.
The campaign, as of Thursday, has raised $15,275, with donations coming from 285 people over the past four months.
“That’s kind of what we’re working on now,” she said. “We’re going to have this property with no equipment.”
If they can buy back some of the young stock, she said, and her son decides to get back into farming, he’ll at least have a start.
In the meantime, Saceric-Clark said, her son has had job offers, including one to milk cows on another dairy farm.
The farm entered bankruptcy in 2012. The other large creditors included People’s United Bank and the Vermont Agricultural Credit Corp.
A reorganization plan through the bankruptcy court included restructuring loans and paying off a debt to the FSA of $287,040 over five years. Over time, the Clarks said, due to illness, the death of Saceric-Clark’s husband, and declining milk prices, the farm missed payments and failed to file reports on time.
In addition to the FSA calling in its loan, People’s United Bank filed in federal court recently seeking to foreclose on the property. The bank says it is owed more than $300,000, not including other expenses and back taxes. That case remains pending.
Robert Clark Sr. bought the land for Milky Way Farm in 1984. Clark Jr., now 30, joined his father in running the business when he turned 18. They ran it together for more than a decade, until Clark Sr. died at age 69 last year of cancer. His son, for the past year, has worked the farm alone.
A miracle almost did happen a few weeks ago, Saceric-Clark said, when she was approached by someone about a possible partnership that would have kept the farm operating.
“It fell through,” she said. “It seemed promising, but …”
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