Dreamy Creamery
Rocky Oaks Goat Creamery…
The saying goes, “Great cheese come from happy cows and happy cows come from California.” But cows aren’t the only happy four-legged cheese makers in California. Right in the heart of the Central Valley are some very happy goats, producing really great cheese. Rocky Oaks Goat Creamery offers small-batch artisan farmstead cheese from its dreamy creamery in Clovis. Margie and Joel Weber, the creamery’s partners, run a smooth operation with cats, dogs, rescue donkeys, a cow and chickens. But the beautiful Nubian goats are the real stars. Some might even say, royalty.
“We have a passion for taking care of our animals. It’s actually a joke how well we take care of them,” Margie says with a chuckle. “All the goats are named after a princess, country-western singer or other significant characters.” They are treated as such and wear a collar with their name.
Margie’s love for animals started long ago on her family’s cow dairy. After 40 years as a registered nurse, she returned to her roots on the farm and says the cheese is in honor of her parents’ Spanish and Dutch heritage. She takes pride in the high-quality cheese they produce, and also in the life they give their animals.
“We breed them once a year and we’re always there whenever they kid. When a goat is no longer needed at the creamery, they retire to our home.” Just like one of the pets. Most of the goats are related and enjoy the dynamics of mother-daughter relationships. The sisters know they are sisters and want to be milked together, six at a time. Goats like routine and they also have cliques. “When they go on the milking stand each day, they have their own order and you don’t change that,” Margie says.
When the goats first kidded, Margie began her life as a cheese maker. In September 2018, the Webers opened the
creamery, with 14 goats milking from February to November. Now, for the first time, the creamery will be milking year-round with 25 goats milking daily.
“Goats can produce one gallon daily, which varies with time of the year,” Margie says. “We are currently producing 90 gallons a week or 360 per month. It takes one gallon of milk to make one pound of cheese. We have a batch vat pasteurizer which holds seven to 15 gallons at one time. We use a bucket system for milking goats and store milk in 2.5-gallon cans for no longer than three days to make the cheese.”
Being a small-batch artisan farmstead means the creamery only uses its herd’s milk to make the cheese in traditional ways. “The only machine used is the vat since all our cheese is pasteurized for public safety. Our cheesemaking has many steps, which are done by hand.”
The creamery boasts eight varieties of cheese: three fresh, two ripened and three aged. The variety determines the time it takes to produce. For example, fresh cheese, like Princess Pride, takes three days from milk in a bucket to packaged up, ready to sell. Other cheeses, like gouda, take six months of aging before they are ready to go to market.
Margie starts her busy days at 5:30am. With a very full plate of goats and cheese, she is also gathering eggs from the chickens that were added to the farm last fall. Up to 100 different colored eggs are collected in a day and sold by the dozen, following the California egg safety standard. The chickens are welcome, resourceful guests at the farm, eating the goats’ alfalfa scraps and leftover grain from the milking stands.
You can find the creamery’s cheese and eggs weekly at Vineyard Farmers Market in Fresno and buy cheese on Saturdays at the Visalia Farmer’s Market.
Rocky Oaks Goat Creamery offers the highest quality hand-crafted goat cheese because of the hard work and dedication from its team of interns, FFA students, artisans and producers. Plans for the future include opening the farm stand Mondays through Saturdays with increased items for cheese boards and farm-to-table meals. They also hope to host farm tours on Saturday mornings for the public and further develop their partnership with Sweet Thistle to expand U-Pick flowers, pumpkin patch and farm-to-table dinners.
Rocky Oaks Goat Creamery
www.rockyoaksgoatcreamery.com
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