TINMOUTH — Tami Carboni-Branchaud remembers coming to Vermont to live on a farm in Tinmouth on a cold January day.
“We moved up here in 2003 from Rhode Island,” Carboni-Branchaud, now 54, said of herself and her late husband, Leo Branchaud. “Leo wanted to milk cows.”
His grandfather had previously had a dairy farm in Rhode Island, and Branchaud had been looking to get into the business. He found out about the farm on Gulf Road in Tinmouth through a service that connects newcomers looking to get into farming with farmers getting out.
“When he found this place he said, ‘Do you want to move to Vermont?’ and I said, ‘OK, for what?’” she said. “He said he really wanted to milk cows.”
For 13 years, that’s what the couple did, milking about 35 to 50 cows each day at their organic dairy farm. He called the cows “his girls.”
On April 22, 2016, the dream of working the farm together came to a tragic end.
Branchaud, 57, was fatally struck on the road in front of his house by a driver who fled the scene. That driver, Thomas H. Velde Jr., who lived in nearby Middletown Springs, was later convicted in the hit-and-run death and sentenced to 19 years behind bars.
Now, five years after her husband’s death, Carboni-Branchaud is still working the land, though it’s no longer a dairy farm. Instead, she raises replacement heifers for other farmers, stores trailers and helps rehabilitate horses.
The operation includes about 40 heifers, three bulls and 25 horses — plus two pot-bellied pigs and five dogs — which is a “darn good number to keep me busy all day,” Carboni-Branchaud said.
Branchaud has learned a lot in the past five years, with no plans of slowing down. Her sister, Jodi Carboni, said Branchaud doesn’t take vacations and rarely leaves the property.
“She works 24/7 and doesn’t stop the whole time,” Carboni said. “She’s not letting go of their dream.”
The new normal
For Carboni-Branchaud, a typical day starts between 5 or 6 a.m. She drinks a lot of caffeine, she said — and then it’s on to chores.
She feeds the dogs, feeds the animals in the barn and those outside it, cleans the stalls and barn, and works with the horses. There’s work to be done in the fields, such as haying and checking to make sure the fences are still standing.
“You hope your tractor starts,” she said, “because that could be a two- or three-hour project right there.”
Running the farm wasn’t always second nature. When Carboni-Branchaud and her husband moved to Vermont in 2003, Patty Baker lived just up the road on her farm.
Baker said she could tell Carboni-Branchaud knew about horses — she had worked at an equine veterinary clinic in Rhode Island before moving to Vermont.
But cows and tractors? Carboni-Branchaud had to learn about them over time.
“She works every day to keep his dream and her dream alive,” Baker said of Carboni-Branchaud.
Baker has since moved 12 miles away to Wallingford but remains a phone call away and is always willing to lend a hand.
Carboni-Branchaud said she has learned a lot in the past five years, including which friends she can call on to answer questions. For example, the people she calls upon to explain certain sounds the tractor makes and what needs to be done to get that noise to stop.
After her husband’s death, the community rallied around Carboni-Branchaud, taking shifts at the farm to ensure the cows continued to be milked to maintain their value before they were eventually sold off months later.
“So many farmers just dropped everything and came,” she said.
In addition to seeing the best in people, Carboni-Branchaud said, she has seen the worst in people, too.
Within days of the crash that killed her husband, she said, one person came to her wanting to buy her fields and another seeking her tractor, mostly for its parts.
“Luckily,” Carboni-Branchaud said. “I had enough guidance.”
For the most part, these days Carboni-Branchaud works the property alone. She has hired help two days a week, and her sister, a retired firefighter living in Rhode Island, travels north to Vermont about once a month to help out.
Jodi Carboni doesn’t expect her sister will ever leave the farm in Tinmouth.
“She’s determined to make it work,” Jodi said.
Tractor tribute
It was that vintage mid-1990s tractor Carboni-Branchaud put on a trailer and took it to a friend’s home in Rutland Town in July 2018. At a top speed of 10 mph, she drove it down heavily traveled Route 7 to the Rutland courthouse to attend the sentencing hearing for the man who killed her husband.
“I drove it here as a tribute to him,” Carboni-Branchaud said at that time of her late husband and his favorite tractor.
As the vehicle rolled past the downtown courthouse, a loud cheer went up for Carboni-Branchaud, stationed behind the wheel.
Branchaud was fatally struck as he walked in front of his home on Gulf Road, according to police. Velde was driving the Chevy pickup that hit him.
Velde later pleaded guilty to charges of leaving the scene of an accident with death resulting and gross negligent driving with death resulting in the hit-and-run crash that killed Branchaud.
Velde’s mother, Lisa Velde, was also sentenced to eight months of jail time after admitting she tried to take the blame for her son’s action. She initially told police she was the person who drove into Branchaud, killing him.
A security camera on the farm’s property eventually produced evidence showing Thomas Velde was driving that night, not his mother.
The case attracted a great deal of attention in the tight-knit Rutland County community, and many Carboni-Branchaud supporters filled benches in the courtroom hearing after hearing, leading up to the sentencing day for Thomas Velde.
About a year after Branchaud’s death, people filled a public forum at the Tinmouth Community Center to express dismay that Velde, who has a lengthy criminal record, continued to drive without a license until the night of the fatal crash. Police should have done more to stop him, they said.
Rutland County State’s Attorney Rose Kennedy, whose office prosecuted the case, and Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan answered questions from the residents for more than an hour about the court system and its processes.
At the forum, Carboni-Branchaud asked Donovan directly if he supported harsher punishment for repeat offenders such as Velde, who had six felony and 30 misdemeanor convictions at the time of the crash, including three drunken driving convictions.
“No, I won’t without more facts,” Donovan replied. “Anybody who would agree to that is misleading you. Details matter.”
However, he added: “I get the anger, and I understand frustration.”
During sentencing in 2018, Judge Cortland Corsones listed off Velde’s past criminal record and said that Velde, who hadn’t had a driver’s license since 1996, continued to make the “choice” to get behind the wheel.
Velde was sentenced to 19 years to life in prison. The earliest he can be released is in April 2035, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Focus on victims
Carboni-Branchaud has been following the debate in the Legislature over which prisoners should be offered earned good time off their sentences.
She doesn’t support Velde earning any time off his sentence, she said in a recent interview. Rather than creating a broad standard about which crimes qualify for the earned time, she prefers officials reviewing requests on a case-by-case basis.
Carboni-Branchaud said the criminal justice system needs to focus on victims as well as offenders.
“What if I lost this place after two years?” she asked of her farm. “Would the state care? I highly doubt anyone from the state would step up and say, ‘Let us help you.’”
Carboni-Branchaud said that, five years after her husband’s death, she continues to have anxiety and sleepless nights.
Through it all, she said, she never considered selling the farm and returning to Rhode Island.
“This is what Leo and I came up to do,” she said.
Carboni-Branchaud also said when she’s out in the fields in the tractor she doesn’t feel that she’s out there alone.
“I’m pretty sure he’s in that cabin with me,” she said of her late husband. “I made some pretty poor decisions, and I’m still standing.”
