A Young Couple with Cheese on Their Minds 24/7

The Weirauch Farm and Creamery is certified organic, Animal Welfare Approved and the couple who run it stand firm on responsible stewardship. But on this tour of the creamery, it wasn't just cheesemaking that fascinated visitors. It was the sheep.

Sheep nuzzling. Sheep petting. Sheep hugging. We had been told that the sheep would be as affectionate as dogs, and they certainly were, even nudging or pawing for more attention when a visitor turned away to pet a different sheep.

This love fest was not an aberration. At one point during a tour that was running about an hour overtime, Carleen Weirauch said to husband, Joel: “We took a bit longer than scheduled on meeting the sheep … again. Maybe we need to start scheduling in extra time with the sheep, since that always seems to happen.”

A New Cheese Product in 2012

The Weirauches produce certified organic, artisan cow milk cheese that has attracted quite a following at local farmers markets — and they say they'll still make and sell cheese from local Jersey cows, even after they attain their larger dream: to make a raw, aged sheep milk cheese through farmstead production. (“Farmstead” cheese comes from animals living on the site where the cheese is made.)

Many frustrations later, they’re on track to achieve this goal in spring 2012, after the new lambs are born and the milk has time to be turned into cheese.

A sampling of the Weirauch doubloon breakfast cheese.

Sheep dairy products are rare in the United States. Joel went to France in 2001 to study cheesemaking. “I was blown away” by the quality of sheep milk, he recalls. "It’s richer than cow milk and pure white, with a smooth, nutty taste. It’s much less tangy than goat cheese."

The biggest obstacle they've faced is finding suitable land. Many of the dairy farmers in Marin and Sonoma have long family histories in the area, but the couple says, “We don’t have capital. Our parents don’t have farmland to pass down to us. And we all know that land is incredibly expensive. So we’ve spent a long time figuring out how to do this.”

Coaching Sustainable Pastures

They’ve had to move their home and flock three times during the past seven years. Not fun. In fact, they admit, it's been dispiriting at times.

Their break in the dark clouds came when they hooked up with California FarmLink, a nonprofit, which matched them up with Paul and Dawn Dolcini, who raise chickens and cows on the Tully Dolci Organic Ranch in Petaluma.

FarmLink helped Weirauch Creamery negotiate a three-year lease to share about 50 acres of certified organic pasture with the Dolcinis, along with a funky barn and the cottage where Carleen and Joel live.

Carleen Weirauch during a recent tour of their cheesemaking operation.

The Weirauches practice rotational grazing using a Mobile Pasture System, the cows grazing a particular area first, then the sheep, and then the chickens, which means the land gets a break while the animals graze elsewhere. The animals are protected at night by a solar-powered, movable electric fence. (Raccoons, coyotes and dogs are the main predators.) In the heat of the day, they gather under a 20-foot-long, forest green canopy that can be moved using an ATV motorcycle.

Their environmentally sound approach was born partly from necessity. To avoid spending money on permanent infrastructure for land they may have to vacate, they refurbished recycled classroom and office portables, installing sloped floors for draining, stainless steel vats and sinks, new electrical and cooling systems, and new plumbing. Since they can take the cheese aging room with them, they chose lime plaster for the walls rather than cheaper fiber-reinforced plastic and the accompanied toxic adhesives.

Word-of-Mouth Sellout

Inside, the Weirauch creamery is blindingly white and shiny stainless steel. The small aging room is dark and smells like, well, aging cheese. Rounds are on shelves and blocks are soaking in vats of brine. Everything is tidy and shipshape.

As with their cow's milk cheese, the Weirauches expect that their first batch of sheep milk cheese next year will sell out, whether at local farmers' markets or to the Friends of the Farm, their fans who sign up via their website.

Looks as if they're on the right path, but as the past has taught them, erring on the side of caution is a plus in the farming business.

As Carleen explains, the portable buildings they've repurposed for cheesemaking can be fitted with wheels when and if needed.

“The point of the portables is the axles, the wheels,” Carleen tells the group on the farm tour. “We want to be able to hitch them up to something and go” if they have to leave for greener pastures some day.