You Won’t Believe How Long it Takes to Make Cheese Curd on the Grassy Cow Dairy

We've been visiting Central New York farms for the past several years as part of Farm Hands. Our recent visit to the Grassy Cow Grazing Dairy in Remsen once again showed us how each farm is different. Leon and Angela Atwell have operated the farm, once owned by Leon's parents since 1997. Angela had never stepped foot on a farm previous to this venture, but you wouldn't know it today.

As the name says, The Grassy Cow is a grazing dairy. Leon pastures the herd whenever possible. He also prefers to cross breed Jersey and Holsteins to produce a smaller, aggressive herd. In addition to milking over 100 head, they have nearly as many young calves they raise. Milking cows isn't the only part of the farm; they raise chickens, a couple of donkeys, and one horse.

The Atwell's also make their own cheese curd, which is a lot more work than you may expect. It takes 13 hours to make one batch of it, meaning 13 straight hours of the process usually starting at 1 a.m. They make curd once a week year round, and frequently twice a week in the summer.

They offer an honor self-service store right on the farm. You can purchase curd in a variety of flavors, ground beef, eggs, maple syrup, and honey. And they trust you to pay. Leon says the best part of the day, is turning the herd out to pasture. Check out the march of the cows in the video above.