About Us

In the fall of 2002, two relatively normal people from Kentucky - Susan Miller, a freelance food writer, and her friend, Elizabeth Hench, a physician’s assistant - planned a serendipitous weeklong trip on the “New England Cheese Trail.” Being confirmed “foodies,” they signed up for a one-day cheesemaking workshop at Ricki Carroll’s New England Cheesemaking Supply in Ashfield, Massachusetts. The “romance” of this story probably started  that very day in the kitchen of Ricki’s old-fashioned Victorian house where she conducts hands-on workshops several times a year.

The trip was planned as a great sightseeing getaway during New England’s fabulous fall foliage season, somewhat like you might plan a trip to California Wine Country or an Alaskan whale watch cruise. You wouldn’t really plan on coming home and making wine or getting a job feeding the whales in an aquarium.

But who knew? Susan came home to Lexington smitten with goats and goat cheese.  Elizabeth fell in love with sheep’s cheeses, and actually thought about giving up her PA career to apprentice in New England as a shepherd!

Susan already lived on a farm, and thought she could just come home and buy some goat milk from a friendly neighborhood dairy goat farmer and start making cheese, never dreaming that there were no legal goat dairies in Kentucky, and in order to set up one, there was an inch-thick set of  FDA regulations a prospective dairyman would have to follow to legally produce goat milk.

There was only one way to get started, of course, and that was for Susan to buy some milk goats. Elizabeth thought it was a grand idea. Susan’s husband and family just shook their heads is disbelief, figuring this would be a passing stage.  Everyone rather politely snickered at the thought of Susan milking goats.

Never one to dismiss an adventurous idea,  Susan rather cunningly carried out a plan to make this dream (a totally impractical dream with a rather large learning curve and  what might be conservatively called “a huge business risk”) come true.

When spring came, Sophie and Luna, three-week old Nubian doelings, arrived at the farm in a small dog carrier in the back of Susan’s SUV. They were adorable, of course And with the guidance of a “how-to” book on goat raising, they grew up healthy, happy … and captivating. When they “freshened” (gave birth) the following year, they produced beautiful babies, plus  two gallons of milk every day after the kids were weaned. And thus began the road to farmstead cheese making.

Fast forward to 2006. Sophie and Luna are now grandmothers and the foundation of Bleugrass Chevre’s herd of 15 Nubian milk does.

It took three years, a lot of hard work and many frustrations, but Susan made her way through the inch-thick code of regulations to set up a goat dairy and cheese plant which was licensed in June of 2007.

Looking back through  all the joys and frustrations, she still finds dairy goats captivating “Honestly, I look forward to going out each morning to be greeted by those pretty faces and wonderful personalities,”  she says.  “This is truly what having a passion is all about.”

UPDATE: Elizabeth is still enjoying her uptown career as a physician’s assistant - with a house in suburbia which is five minutes away from the hospital where she is regularly on-call.  Fortunately, she can now enjoy the best of both worlds: She comes out to the country on weekends and makes goat cheese.

The two women are now in the discussion stage of adding a few dairy sheep to the cheese making venture.
Pecorino, anyone?