It’s always a surprise when we delve into a cheesemaker’s life and discover talent we could not have imagined. Grant has a LOT of achievements, even aside from his fabulous cheese, and we can only say, WOW!!! Grant’s Story I was raised in Michigan on a dairy farm. My grandfather and dad had a dairy when I was a young child. They had about 100
Ivy Netzel in Gourley Township, Michigan
Ivy’s Story I live in a quiet little hamlet called Jam Dam (unincorporated Gourley Township) on the Cedar River in Menominee County in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My husband of 38 years and I moved here in 2014, because after long careers as engineers, we were looking for a peaceful corner of the world to retire. I was an electrical engineer. I worked in
Shirley Hampshire in Kingston, Michigan
Shirley and her husband, Randy have 6 grown kids and 9 grandchildren, so far. Due to Covid, daycare options are limited so they are finding themselves babysitting quite a bit right now. This is hard to imagine because their normal schedule alone is grueling by any standards (as in leaving home at 3am to go to farmer’s markets and getting home at 7-8pm). Their business,
Cheesemakers Sharing About the Pandemic – A Series/4
Many of you have given us blog interviews in the last 10 years (since we started this blog) and many of you will be interviewed in the future (when we hear from you). We reached out to a few of our interviewees (randomly) to ask if they would share their experiences during this pandemic. We thought it would be best to ask folks we have
Farm Dayz 2015 in Dimondale, Michigan
In October, 2012, we did an interview with Tiffany Rich of Woodspryte Farm in Dimondale, Michigan (click here). At that time, she had just completed her second yearly farm “open house” called Woodspryte Farms’s Family Farm Dayz. By the next year, 2013, the event had grown so popular that she had set up a committee to help her run it and she had moved it
Wood Spryte Farm in Dimondale, Michigan
Tiffany Rich makes it all look easy! Tiffany and her husband, Mike have a very small, 5 acre farm but they put it all to good use. They raise their own meat (beef, chicken, quail, lamb), milk their our own cows and sheep, spin their own wool and they have their own business growing and selling garlic (www.woodsprytefarmfinnsheep.webs.com). They have three children – Brandon, age
Caroline Abbott Revisited
Caroline in her new cheese kitchen Life after the Year of Yeast Contamination… Back in May, we did an article about Caroline Abbott in Otsego, Michigan who had “mystery holes” in her goat cheese. After months of research and experimentation, she finally realized that it was being caused by yeast bacteria in the air from making bread. Recently, Caroline told us she had solved the