Raising goats and making cheese got the attention of this family when they had to make life changes.
Written by Susan Marquez / Photography by Stephen Ironside
As schoolteachers in California, Scott and Tessa McCormick never dreamed they would one day own a goat farm in Elkins, a small community in northwestern Arkansas. Yet, that’s the path Tessa says God had for them.
“We lived in the mountains and loved our life,” says Tessa. The couple has three daughters, Amber, Caily and Emily. They each enjoyed hiking in the mountains, going to the beach, and all that California had to offer. But their idyllic life was put to the test when Tessa had a series of health events, followed by a tragic house fire. Tessa was only 35 when she suffered from heart failure and paralysis. Diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, her doctor told Tessa she would have to quit working to live. On April Fool’s Day in 2010, four days before Tessa was due to go to the Mayo Clinic, the family’s home caught on fire. “We were all home, and able to get out,” says Tessa. But the damage was extensive, and the insurance company didn’t pay the full coverage amount. “We had to take stock and decide what to do.”
The family moved from the mountaintop to a valley, and Tessa homeschooled the girls, who were nine, 12 and 15 at the time. “We didn’t want to live in a valley (city),” says Tessa. “We prayed as a family for God to lead us to the right place. He led us to visit friends in Arkansas.” Tessa’s mother was originally from Arkansas, and Tessa was about to become a third-generation dairy farmer. “I visited Arkansas as a child, but I didn’t know anything about dairy farming.” The girls loved Arkansas, and Tessa says she heard God’s voice saying, “Move here.” But she did not hear him say anything about goats.
The family moved into a friend’s farmhouse near Fayetteville and shortly afterwards took a trip to a wedding in Michigan. Scott was stressed because he needed to support his family. On the drive back to Arkansas, Scott said they should find a dairy farm they could visit. “We found one in Missouri, and the owners were happy to give us a tour. They had goats, and they told us that if we were serious about cheese making, we should go to the Vermont Institute of Artisanal Cheese. “We got an insurance check from the house in California and used it for Scott to take the basic and advanced cheese making courses.” The family returned to Vermont two more times. Tessa and the girls did an internship and learned goat health and husbandry. They went back a third time to buy a herd of goats. “Scott had a Jeep Wrangler he loved. I knew when he sold it to have money to buy a herd of goats he was serious.”
A friend of a friend helped them find some land. “Land ownership is one of the requirements to have dairy goats,” Tess explains. After working on building their home in California for ten years, the McCormicks didn’t have the energy or the time to put into another house. “We lived in a pop-up trailer for three months,” recalls Tessa. “On a mission trip to Mexico we lived in yurts and thought that would be the ideal thing for our family.” They found three used yurts in California, so they had them disassembled and shipped to Arkansas.
The McCormick’s started building their herd in 2011, and in 2013 they passed their final inspection. White River Creamery was in business. While they don’t sell goat milk, they do sell products made from the milk. Cheese is the main product. It takes a minimum of 48 hours to make the basic chevre cheese. After milking the goats around 6pm, Scott starts the cheese-making process at 8pm. By 8am the next morning, the cheese is ready to cut and hang.
When taking school children on tours of the farm, Tessa refers to the Little Miss Muffet nursery rhyme. “They have heard of curds and whey, so I explain that curds are the cheese and whey is what comes out of the cheese. The whey is a bright green, very high in vitamin B. Bodybuilders love it. Scott tried doing different things with the whey from making beer, wine, and caramel.” In addition to chevre, Scott makes gouda that is aged for eight years, marinated cheeses sold in Mason jars, and feta cheese. “Feta hangs longer,” explains Tessa. “It gets brined. A young feta takes about a week, but the more mature feta cheeses age for three years.”
The McCormick’s herd is made up of American Dairy Goat Association-registered Nigerian Dwarf goats that graze on 15 acres of pasture. The American breed was developed for small-scale dairy production. Tessa says they chose Nigerian Dwarf goats because their milk tastes the best. “It is sweet, and high in milk fat, which makes it very rich and creamy.”
Goat milk soap is another product produced on the farm. “It’s almost a shame to use the milk to make soap, because the milk is so good,” says Tessa. “But the soap is really good for the skin. We are not able to make health claims, but we have many repeat customers who swear their eczema cleared up after using our soap.” They also purchase cow’s milk to make cheese, including their popular fromage blanc, which is the cow version of chevre.
The whole family has worked on the farm over the years. With the girls grown and moved out of the house, it’s up Scott and Tessa to keep the farm running, along with a few employees. “We have had up to twenty employees at one time and we were making cheese six days a week.” The girls are 23, 26 and 28 now and all of them live in Fayetteville. “We even have our first grandbaby.” Tessa says that none of the girls are interested in goat farming or cheese-making, but she hopes that may change some day. “They are all cheese snobs,” she laughs. “When our middle daughter did mission work in Papua, New Guinea, they had no dairy at all, which of course meant no cheese. She said she knew she was in a third world country when she became ‘cheese deprived.’”
Products from White River Creamery are sold in local farmers markets and grocery stores. Many restaurants use their products as well. Some of the items can be ordered online and shipped.
