She goes from running to running a fourth-generation farm
Courtesy of Birch Creek Farmery
Life is divine and bovine at Birch Creek Farmery, which started as a dairy farm 100 years ago.
Courtesy of Birch Creek Farmery
Teddi Maslowski, right, owner of Birch Creek Farmery, and Chris Lombardi plan to wed in May.
Courtesy of Birch Creek Farmery
Pigs are prominent, but not hogging the spotlight at Birch Creek Farmery.
Courtesy of Birch Creek Farmery
Teddi Maslowski, owner of the farmery business, and Chris Lombardi are planning their late May wedding.
Courtesy of Birch Creek Farmery
Teddi Maslowski tends to four not-so-little pigs at Birch Creek Farmery.
A longtime runner is now running a century-old farm – with assistance from her family.
“My parents help out, and so do cousins, aunts and uncles. We’d never make it work without them,” Teddi Maslowski said, laughing.
Maslowski, 28, a former professional athlete, is the sole owner of Birch Creek Farmery, a meat-production operation in northwestern Washington County. While the business is hers, Teddi’s parents – Anita and Ted Maslowski – own the farm, which sits in the Eldersville area of Jefferson Township, bordering West Virginia.
“Everything at our farm is in the meat-production system,” she said, ticking off a livestock menagerie featuring chickens, goats, pigs, rabbits, lambs and beef.
“We’re trying to do all proteins,” said Maslowski, 28. “We have all heritage breeds, all raised on the pasture full time.”
The farm, as noted on its website, provides tail to snout butchery and farm-to-door delivery from its Burgettstown mailing address.
This is a drastic change from 1922, when her great-grandparents launched a dairy farm with eight cows on the site. Birch Creek has, essentially, spanned two pandemics – the Spanish flu, which began in 1918, to the current ongoing health crisis. The farm this year could qualify for the Century Farm program operated by the state Department of Agriculture.
To be considered, a farm must have been owned by the same family for at least 100 years, and a family member must have lived there on a permanent basis throughout. The Ag Department also requires that the farm “must consist of at least 10 acres of the original holding or gross more than $1,000 annually from the sale of farm products.”
“We’re planning to apply, but have so, so, so much paperwork we’re working on now,” said Teddi, who resides in her grandmother’s house on the property.
As a fourth-generation operator of this land, Maslowski may have seemed destined for this vocation.
“We’ve always raised animals here,” she said. Securing a master’s degree in environmental management wasn’t necessary, but doing so has only enhanced her abilities to pursue this vocation.
Birch Creek Farmery will be in an expansion mode. Maslowski recently purchased an older building outside Weirton, W.Va., which she plans to convert into a U.S. Department of Agriculture butcher shop, along with a commercial kitchen and bakery. A 2023 opening is targeted.
The farm is responsible for delivering products directly to consumers, but does not make all of the meat deliveries. Birch Creek gets a boost from its partnership with Market Wagon, an Indianapolis-based online farmers market that delivers to a 15-county region in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The delivery fee is $6.95, regardless of the number of items ordered.
“The reason we do it is to enable food producers to thrive, ” said Market Wagon CEO Nick Carter, a farmer himself. “It allows them to compete on the same playing field.”
He said the company has about 1,000 gig workers who, once a week, make deliveries in multiple states.
Dan Klein, a spokesperson for Market Wagon, said there are “20 vendors selling on Market Wagon with addresses” in Washington, Greene, Fayette and Allegheny counties.
“It’s a substantial revenue stream for us,” Teddi said. “It’s fantastic because it provides consistent income week after week, and it only involves a solitary drop-off point on a single morning. It’s given us a platform from which to build other aspects of our business.”
Navigating the pandemic has been a challenge for just about any business, and Maslowski acknowledged that her farm has dealt with some.
“At times, we have been unable to meet demand,” she said. “The hardest part has been having our slaughterhouse tied up with employees, some of whom have had to cancel appointments, causing a huge bottleneck.
“I also can’t always get tags for animals – also syringes and needles – because of a very tight supply chain.”
She added, however, “I think our customers have been extremely supportive. We’re really thankful for that community support.”
Running this business can be stressful, but Maslowski is accustomed to running. She said she started at “age 5 or 6” and ran at Steubenville Catholic Central High School, in Ohio, which was closer to home than Burgettstown Area High. Maslowski attended Duke University on a full athletic scholarship, then competed as a heptathlete for Santa Barbara Track Club in California.
Now she is back home, at the family’s 100-year-old farm, keeping busy around the clock. This food-producing professional, however, has a significant event on her plate a few months from now – and it’s not directly related to the farm.
She will take a break from her agrarian duties and marry Chris Lombardi at a small local church.