ABOUT OUr Team
Our People
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Ariel is a first generation farmer and the owner of Clear Spring Creamery. Though she grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, she figures she was born a farmer and has been working towards this career since she was a teenager. She feels incredibly grateful for the opportunity to do work she loves and still smiles every time she gets to watch the sunrise while milking the cows. You can talk with Ariel most Sundays at the Dupont Circle farmers market.
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You are most likely to see Patrick working the Takoma Park market on Sundays, though he gets around to all our markets! He joined our team in 2022 and, in addition to covering market shifts, he works in the creamery, processing the milk and yogurt. Outside of work, he is a devout Eagles fan and general sports and movies enthusiast–ask him how his fantasy football team is doing or what his most recent favorite movie is!
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Dawn is our regular at Falls Church, and has been a part of the Clear Spring Creamery team for over 9 years. In her day job, she is a librarian, and she brings that tidy attention to detail to her work staffing the market booth. Her favorite Clear Spring Creamery product is peach yogurt, but our biggest fan in the household is Dawn’s wife, who drinks 2 quarts of chocolate milk every week!
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Rain loves the Takoma Park farmers market and the general Takoma Park community, where they live with their wife Vicky. They joined the Clear Spring Creamery team in 2021, having been a fan of our chocolate milk for many years before that! In addition to working with us, Rain is a freelance artist: you can check out their instagram (@RainShoshana) or visit their Etsy store (RainboStudios - Etsy).
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You can generally find Delvin at Dupont Circle, where he fights his natural night owl inclination and gets up early every Sunday so that we are set up and ready to serve y’all with time to spare! In addition to working with us, Delvin works as part of the floor staff at Fit360 DC, assisting people with new gym equipment and exercises, as well as a freelance voice actor. You can find some of his roles here: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13889276/ and his personal website here: https://delvingreenvo.carrd.co/ . He also has the two cutest cats on the planet (his words) Juniper and Lute. While they may keep him up all night he would do anything for them.
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Nadia is another deeply valued sub, also often filling in at Dupont or Takoma. During the week, she is a lawyer with the Department of Energy, working on utility regulation. For fun, she enjoys going on long runs, and making batches of fermented food–her kimchi is out of this world!
Our Cows
At Clear Spring Creamery, everything starts with our cows.
Without their hard work turning grass into milk, none of us would be here!
Your milk is made by a small herd of about 30 Jersey cows that are moved to fresh pastures daily. While they are also given some grain as a treat at milking time, the foundation of their diet is diverse grass pastures.
Jerseys are known for their exceptionally rich and creamy milk, and a diet rich in green grass makes it even better!
One of our most basic assumptions about our cows is that they are intelligent creatures with rich social lives, and we do our best to create an environment that allows them to express these traits.
Whenever possible, we keep the whole herd together, allowing mothers to raise their daughters and sisters to play together and teach each other about the tasty plants in the pasture.
While it is standard practice in the dairy industry to separate calves from their mothers at birth, we have found that leaving the calves with their moms results in very healthy and well-adjusted young animals.
We often find the cows grooming each other in the pasture and see mothers, daughters, and granddaughters resting together in multi-generational family groups.
We are always grateful for the generosity and kindness of our cows, and for their willingness to share their precious milk with us and with all of you!
Our Land
Located in Washington County, Maryland, Clear Spring Creamery sits on 115 acres of beautiful, rented pasture in an agricultural community about 1.5 hours west of DC.
Our landscape is a mix of ridges and valleys: to our east, the Conococheague Creek meanders its way to the Potomac River, and to the west, small mountains hint at the Appalachians that start about 50 miles further west.
Our farm mirrors the diversity of the land around us, with high, dry hilltops with amazing views and a very special spring-fed wetland that joyfully nourishes a diversity of native plants and wildlife.
We feel extremely fortunate to work somewhere where beauty and life are so abundant!
In The News
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