“We’re really lucky up here, we’re almost surrounded by this fresh water, which gives us these lush pastures.”
Lush pastures that feed the cutest little friends!
“We have about 500 acres that we are able to rotationally grays are goats, and it’s some thing that we’re calling the regenerative agriculture.”
is home to many goats with distinct markings and friendly faces.
Amy Spitznagel owns the farm on the Leelanau Peninsula in Northport.
Spitznagel says, “We’re able to take what we started with and make the earth better. Every time we graze the goats into a different pasture.”
“Our goat cheese is extremely unique,” says Melissa Hiles.
Melissa Hiles is the cheesemaker at the farm.
She says, “A lot of people say our cheese doesn’t have that, they say, “goaty” flavor. That’s just because the freshness in the quality of the milk.”
is known for the quality of their product,
Spitznagel says, “We’ve only been making cheese for about nine years. And we won 25 American Cheese Society awards. Idyll Pastures plain spreadable and the Idyll Pastures garlic and herb spreadable, they just won two best in class world championship cheese awards.”
And fresh cheese isn’t possible without the milking process…
Hiles explains, “We milk the goats twice a day, every day. We can hold up to about 600 gallons of milk. The goats are putting out about 100 gallons per milking. The milk is cold in bulk tanks, we have chart recorders so it’s constantly keeping track of the temperature of that milk, and making sure that it’s safe for use. And then from the bulk tank we pump about 12 feet through the wall, into the pasteurizer and the creamery.”
And even though Idyll Farms is hard at work making the best product, you can get a glimpse of it this summer!
“We are a working dairy farm so unfortunately we can’t be open to the public all the time. In the summertime, we do offer a couple different tours open to the public that we advertise on social media,” says Spitznagel.
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