Norma and Bill Coli of Blue Heron Farm have tried their hands at a number of agricultural endeavors over the years, everything from raising dairy goats and making yogurt to haying fields and raising cattle, but making maple syrup is ultimately what stuck.
The couple celebrated the 50th anniversary of both their marriage and their farm in 2025, having purchased a 130-acre farm on Warner Road in Charlemont in 1975.
“We’ve been here since August of 1975,” Bill Coli said. “It was our dream. I see all these young folk talking about how they have dreams of farming, and we were dreamers too. We were part of the back to the land movement in the 1960s and 70s.”
Bill, 82, and Norma, 78, met in 1969 at the Red Dog Saloon in Greenfield. They bonded over being city folk who wanted to learn about agriculture.
Bill is originally from Providence, Rhode Island. He said he had graduated from the College of Holy Cross in Worcester and intended to pursue a master’s degree in social work, but after a 14-month deployment to Vietnam, he was not eager to go back to school and start a traditional career. Instead, he went back to school for a different purpose and studied agriculture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, then moved to Vermont.
“Overseas can change people, and I wasn’t ready to go back to the traditional route,” Bill Coli said. “That just wasn’t appealing to me. So I ended up in Vermont and met my wife in Greenfield … I was playing music and we met and that was it for the two of us. We’d met who we wanted to be with.”
Norma was born in New York City in the Bronx borough. She recalled trips to the Bronx Zoo and stories from her Portuguese grandfather, who had been a farmer prior to immigrating to the U.S., as being her inspiration to connect with the natural world.
After they met, the Colis settled at Bill’s rental cabin in southern Vermont while they looked for land to begin their own homestead and spent time learning skills from other established farmers.
“We were living a pretty good life. We learned how to sugar from a couple, the Holland family in South Newfane, learned how to grow a hog and butcher a hog, the traditional county skills that people in Vermont have been using for generations,” Bill Coli said. “But we couldn’t find any land that was of any value at all. It was all steep, wooded hillsides, no houses, no way you could keep livestock or anything.”
Eventually, Norma’s mother sent them a letter with an ad for the property in Charlemont attached, Bill Coli said. They went to visit the property and knew that it was the spot they were meant to be, especially after the other prospective buyer for the property had their financing fall through, clearing the way for the Colis to buy the property, which had been farmed since 1796, after being first settled by Samuel Parker Jr.
The couple named their property Blue Heron Farm after their first tour where the former owner mentioned herons lived on the land. This felt like a sign to the Colis, who often spent time watching the herons at the Harriman Reservoir near their previous home.
“It was really pristine. There were herons nesting all over there and not only are they beautiful, but they mate for life,” Bill Coli said.
“That was the sign that we needed to buy this place,” Norma Coli added.
Bill and Norma Coli at Blue Heron Farm in July 2003. PAUL FRANZ / Staff File Photos
In their earlier years, Norma Coli kept a herd of 40 goats that she milked with the goal of having an organic goat milk yogurt business. Bill said that at the time, it was difficult to find equipment for small-scale operations. A pasteurizer and other necessary equipment at the time would have cost them $10,000, and they would need to be able to produce nearly 1,000 gallons of milk.
Bill added that they also wanted to pursue a grass-fed beef business, but in the 1970s, consumers wanted prime rib and tenderloin, not grass-fed ground beef.
“Back in 1978, the concept of grass-fed beef was like speaking ‘Martian,'” Bill Coli said. “We were ahead of that market.”
Eventually, they decided to tap the 200-plus-year-old maples on the property, and 50 years later, the Colis still make and package maple syrup on Warner Hill.
Over the past 50 years, Bill and Norma have kept busy mastering their craft and making improvements to the farm. They added and renovated a few rental spaces on the property for people looking to get away and spend time watching and learning about farming and sugaring.
They also replaced the sugar house, which had a dirt floor and no running water when they first started sugaring there 50 years ago, and have made several equipment upgrades over the years.
In recent years, they replaced the old evaporator with a new one that is more efficient and recirculates exhaust and heat to burn up hot coals completely. They also purchased an automatic packager that helps pump syrup into containers four at a time, allowing the farm to package hundreds of syrup bottles per hour.
Bill Coli said that while they only tap the trees for a few weeks each winter, when cold nights and warmer days facilitates sap flow so it can be collected, the farm is able to purchase additional sap from other farms to supplement their supply and allow them to continue packaging and distributing syrup year-round.
As they plan ahead for the future, Bill and Norma have put their property in a trust so it will stay with their extended family, Bill said. The couple has a son whose interests lie outside of farming. They hope to find someone who would be interested in purchasing their syrup packaging business while they continue to farm the property.
“The average farmer in Massachusetts was over 60 years old, and there’s a lot of interest on the part of young people,” Bill Coli said. “I worked for UMass Amherst for 30 years in Extension Outreach. There were kids coming from all over the country, working a two year program learning agriculture.”
He said he believes whoever takes on the business should have a partner, and at least one partner should have income outside of the syrup business.
“We’re working toward the hope that somebody would want to either lease the farm, and particularly our packing and distribution business, which is the main farm business,” Bill Coli said.
Bill Coli said they would like to eventually sell the syrup packaging business, but they would be willing to lease it and the equipment and work to teach the next generation the ropes.
“We’re just looking to help young people start their dream by not having to buy a farm and the equipment,” Bill Coli said. “We’re here looking for a successor.”
Norma Coli added that they plan to keep the farm and keep tapping trees and raising their remaining five goats. She said running a farm is a “labor of love” and takes many hours, but they don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.
“It’s a lifestyle and we love it,” she said. “You have to be prepared to work all the time, we work seven days a week, but we love it. We love Charlemont, and we’re not going anywhere.”