A Culture of Community: Making Yogurt, Cheese and Connections inside the Adirondack Blue Line
Doing the Math on Dairy
“The Havarti is amazing, but my favorite thing we make is yogurt. Cheese is art, and yogurt is equations and formulas.” From the way North Country Creamery co-owner Ashlee Kleinhammer’s face lights up as she says “equations,” it is clear that she and I have different feelings about math. In fact, this was the third math-mention during our conversation.
Ashlee, as it turns out, is really into math.
The idea of cheese as art immediately clicks into place. Dairy, bacteria, moisture, time and temperature, harmonizing in a way that can never be perfectly replicated in another location with another set of hands. Ashlee’s love of cheesemaking is evident— North Country Creamery has six or so cheeses, including a creamy Camembert I’d eat every day of the year—but it is when she talks about yogurt that her passion truly shows.
Yogurt, she emphasizes, is chemistry, calculation and regulation, with a delicious result nearly guaranteed every time. Farming so often entails juggling unexpected issues that finding a reliable product, and one you love producing at that, is like discovering treasure.
North Country Creamery’s 100% grassfed yogurt is a treasure. Listening to Ashlee enthuse about the steps from pasture to product, it makes sense why the creamery has been so successful since she and her partner, Steven Googin, took over in 2013.
I first met Steven and Ashlee while on an all-day farm tour with middle school students. As we reached Mace Chasm Road in the northern town of Keeseville, New York, our bus came to a standstill. Fifteen cows were making their way across the road, stopping traffic (which was, at that moment, only us). We’d arrived at milking time. Despite surely having countless tasks to complete, Steven welcomed the group, touring us around the bucolic property. We visited the bright and shiny yogurt room, the cheese cave nestled into the hillside, the barns and the rolling green pastures. All the while Steven answered the students’ questions with humor and warmth.
He talked us through the milking process and explained how cultures turn milk into yogurt and cheese. He smiled as he described his partner, Ashlee, as “not just a dairy farmer but a grass farmer,” explaining how thoughtfully she manages herd grazing. After visiting some cuddly calves, we departed, bringing with us a newfound connection to the dairy we eat every day.
Nearly two years later, sitting down with Ashlee in North Country Creamery’s Clover Mead Café, it becomes clear that Steven’s engagement with the students that day wasn’t a one-off. Community and connection are core to the values that brought the two to Keeseville, and what they’ve continued to cultivate in their time running the creamery.
Ashlee, a West Coaster, studied agriculture in college before heading to Vermont. After hopping around to several educational farms, she landed in Essex, New York, and met Steven, who was farming in central New York at the time. Ashlee was interested in starting a farm in an area with a strong cohort, and when the opportunity arose in the Adirondacks, she invited Steven to join her in the endeavor. “I’d been in other rural areas and it could be pretty isolating,” Ashlee explains. “We came to Keeseville and found this growing, vibrant community.” Initially keeping on Sam Hendren, previous owner and award-winning cheesemaker, as their mentor, Ashlee and Steven learned all they could about cheesemaking. In the years since, the two have become not only successful cheesemakers themselves, but the only cow’s milk yogurt producers in the region. Their prolific yogurt—with that sweet-faced sleeping cow on its label—can be found in restaurants, stores and hospitals. They’ve also recently connected with the Adirondack Farm to School Initiative, and their yogurt is now served in school cafeterias as part of a fresh-and-local lunch program.
Ashlee and Steven feel a deep connection to their North Country home, and that means selecting breeds of cattle that can thrive in this region. The Shorthorn, Jersey and Normande cows in their herd are cold-hardy, have mellow temperaments and produce high butterfat milk perfect for yogurt and cheesemaking. Keeping their herd on the smaller side allows them to keep careful track of their rotational grazing. “I’m passionate about grazing,” Ashlee says. “The science of grass management is fascinating.”
During the winter season Ashlee and Steven bring in local hay, but while their fields are still lush, Ashlee’s affinity for math comes into play on a daily basis. Each cow’s needs are considered, ensuring they can get the right amount of grasses and legumes in their diets. Rainfall is calculated, and grass regrowth is taken into account as the herd is moved across the pasture.
“Having cows on a 100% grass diet makes a huge difference,” Ashlee explains, describing the rich taste and creamy top-layer that distinguishes their yogurt from that of grain-fed cattle. “After all, cows are meant to eat grass.”
It is more work, but Ashlee and Steven believe that what is healthy for the cows is, in turn, healthy for the customer as well as for the land under their stewardship.
Though the Farming Community Is Little, It Is Fierce
“We support each other,” Ashlee explains. “There’s plenty of room for all of us.”
Keeseville is remote, even for those of us who live within the Blue Line—that irregular boundary that encloses the Adirondack Park. But the small town is something of a mecca for local-food enthusiasts.
In addition to the milk, cheese and yogurt available at North Country Creamery, neighboring Mace Chasm Farm raises and butchers their own grassfed and pastured meat. Just past Mace Chasm, the Ausable Brewing Company brews small-batch beer out of an old barn and hosts food trucks and local music regularly. Nearby Highland Vineyards produces local wine, and on either side of the creamery, Fledgling Crow Farm and the Rehoboth Homestead grow a bounty of fresh produce.
The Clover Meade Café’s handwritten menu features ingredients from around the area and, in addition to selling their own dairy, the Farmstore stocks local produce, meat and craft items. “We want this region to thrive,” Ashlee says, and she’s not just talking about farming. “We get most of our equipment from the local hardware store, and they give us advice on whatever we’re dealing with over here.”
Ashlee and Steven are also close with the two other dairies in the area—Sugarhouse Creamery in Upper Jay, which makes cheese from their Brown Swiss cows, and Asgaard Farm in Au Sable Forks, which makes goat cheese. “We all have different products so it’s great,” Ashlee states. “Maybe if a fourth dairy popped up the market would be saturated.” She pauses. “Actually, if someone started making mozzarella I think there would be room for that, too. I’ll bet people would love that.”
Rather than expanding, Ashlee and Steven have been honing in on what they already do well. The two split the workload on the farm, with Steven handling much of the day-to-day upkeep, and Ashlee managing dairy production. Ashlee emphasizes the importance of simplicity and sustainability not just in farming but in self-care.
“We’re always making a conscious effort to keep loving what we do, and to make it better, as opposed to bigger.” Like most good things, it is a balancing act making sure they are enjoying their business, each other, and the beautiful Adirondack wilderness around them.
“We want to be here for the long run,” Ashlee says with a smile.
“To keep it manageable and fun, and to spend our time connecting to people, engaging with our community and making a product we believe in.”
It’s an admirable goal, and one they are achieving successfully every delicious, dairy-filled day.
North Country Creamery | @northcountrycreamery
Clover Mead Café | @clovermeadcafe
Adirondack Farm to School Initiative
Mace Chasm Farm | @macechasmfarm
Ausable Brewing Company | @ausablebrewingco
Highland Vineyards
Fledgling Crow Farm
Rehoboth Homestead | @rhomestead
Sugarhouse Creamery | @sugarhousecreamery
Asgaard Farm | @asgaardfar
