Joan Schleh with her fabulous cheese.
Home Farm is a small farm in the Skagit Valley of northwest Washington. Joan Schleh, her husband, Steve,their daughter and their 2 sons breed Saanen and Oberhasli dairy goats and Scottish Highland beef cattle. Joan hopes to be selling her cheese sometime in the near future.
Joan’s Story
From the first taste of goat milk, which caused us to get some of our own goats, I knew I wanted to make cheese. As a beginner, there is nothing easier to make than chèvre. But I have learned to refine it, make it more varied, and above all, make it up to my own improving standards.
Every time I tried a new cheese I tried to make it myself. Chèvre is still the cornerstone of my cheese making, but I also make a pretty awesome goat camembert which suits my palette well and is a crowd pleaser. Last year I really worked on perfecting a cow/goat milk combo tomme. I love it aged at 4 months and its even more amazing at a year. These are my core cheeses. I also like to make cheddar but haven’t really been super happy with an all goat cheddar, and I have been experimenting with different recipes for feta, and trying to create a new recipe based on a fresh brie cheese I tried.
Joan’s cheese board at a meal this past summer.
I learned to make cheese mostly by reading instructions in cheese making books. Ricki Carroll’s cheese making book (Home Cheese Making) was an important first recipe book as was the old “Goats Produce Too” book I was given by a neighbor. I mistakenly thought that in order to make cheese I needed all the fancy equipment first. So I bought a stainless steel cheese press, fancy pots, and lots of cheese forms. Since I was really only making chèvre I really did not need it. But it all came in handy when I became more adventurous and indeed did use all my equipment and more as I experimented with different kinds of cheese.
I have now taken several cheese making courses over the years, including a class offered by Oregon State University. I have even taught a basic cheese making class trying to answer common questions that I had myself when learning to make cheese. My desire to learn more about cheese even caused our family to take a trip through the cheese trail of Northern California.
We were fortunate to have several personal tours of prominent cheese companies and I got some new ideas for making cheese. I would love to expand that exploration of cheese to include other areas of the US and even of Europe.
So how did our family get started?
Once upon a time I was a city girl who thought she was so cool doing all the city stuff. Then I got married, had kids, owned a tiny house in a city neighborhood, and slowly watched my kids outgrow their postage stamp sized back yard while all along my latent inner country girl inside me grew and grew.
Since my husband’s job was already half an hour north of town we decided to look for a place an hour north of town in the scenic Skagit Valley renowned for its beautiful farm land and tulip fields. The moment I set eyes on the Victorian style house on 2 acres I knew this would be our forever home. We bought it without looking at another single house in the area.
A neighbor was selling her 3 goats and I thought that might be a good thing to get into. She gave us a sample of the goat milk and I was sold. Within a few years we took the plunge and became a certified Grade A raw goat milk dairy selling the fluid milk.
That was a fun and exciting time but after a couple of years it became obvious we had put the cart before the horse. I was homeschooling my three kids plus driving them to swim practice each afternoon in another town which caused me to be gone from home four hours a day.
On top of making deliveries, and promoting our milk, I realized that everything in our life was getting compromised and so we gave up the license and we just milked the goats for house milk and simple chèvre.
My kids became heavily involved in showing goats in 4-H and we soon added Highland beef cows to our farm, leasing the 15 acres adjacent to our property.
We focused on improving our herd of Saanen and Oberhasli goats through breeding, and with the whole family involved, moved into the show world.
As the kids grew and went off to college, I was able to hang up my home school teacher hat and started experimenting more with cheese making. Experimenting with new cheese recipes and making my favorites, I love to present a varied cheese board for my family and gatherings of friends, who are all eager to inhale everything I make.
Son Ian, then me, then daughter Elizabeth, then son-in-law Stephen Kraft, then son Daniel, and finally, husband Steve. Elizabeth and Daniel are officially the breeders of the goats, and Ian has the cows. But the whole family works together with all the animals.
I have further to go but I anticipate working towards regaining our grade A license and making cheese to sell in the future. Right now I am looking at how to fund a small vat pasteurizer. Once I have that, it’s a matter of effort to get my facility back to grade A standard.
Raising my kids on homegrown food and homemade cheese has made them all appreciate quality food and cheese. My youngest son is in his junior year at the University of Idaho as an agricultural economics major. He has caught the cheese bug and dreams of opening a chain of cheese stores. I wish him the best of luck and hope that perhaps some day my homemade cheese may be featured in his shops.
Garden Home Farm
17198 Dunbar Rd
Mount Vernon, Washington
Website: https://www.gardenhomefarm.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GardenHomefarm/
E-mail: jsschleh@yahoo.com
(360) 424-4112
