![]() ![]() It’s not a large production by any stretch, but it’s his and one that he’s worked hard to perfect. Like a hospital.”įrom this building, cheese is created from the milk of those dozen plus cows out on the grounds. “I’d take you in there, but it needs to be clean. The cheese processing plant behind it, complete with a cheese vat and pasteurizer. There’s the milk room that contains a tank to chill the fresh milk. ![]() “I’m not sure if this even constitutes as a ‘parlor’ at all.” Next to the parlor, his ever-expanding creamery operations. “Probably the most basic milking parlor you will ever see.” He smiles. “It’s not much,” he says standing in the simple open shed. “It’s a lot of trial and error,” he tells me, tromping in the mud to the milking parlor. A big, warm open kitchen and eating space enveloped by opera. It’s a large open air room complete with a stove, a douglas fir table capable of seating twenty, kitchen gear (a saw hanging there for breaking down pigs from time to time), shelves with pickles, jams, jellies and nuts––and little else. It stands right near the cookhouse he built where we meet. He refurbished the Harrington Beall Log House, the oldest standing home on the island. Thankfully, he no longer lives in a chicken coop. He’s made this place––what was once four acres of outlandishly overgrown blackberry brambles, rusted up cars, weeds and garbage is now a well-run dairy farm. “What can I show you?” He’s warm, hospitable, at home here on his farm, because it is his home and has been for many years. His mud splattered rubber boots sit unattended by the door. He’s got jeans on that he’s probably worn 10,000 times out on that farm and some hiking boots. The Sunday paper is strewn across the table in front of us. ![]() He’s got on a black Carhartt jacket, glasses in the pocket for reading. “Welcome,” he says, his eyes a glowing blue, his hair cropped short. The room smells good–– like long cooked meat and something earthy, too. “You guys want something to eat?” He’s got some meat in a Dutch oven in the stove. Ravishes of opera pour out of the large room. Timmermeister started out living in an old beat down chicken coop until he could build something more sustainable out there amongst the scrub and madrona. Much like Timmermeister and his farm have changed season by season, year by year. A family that grows, evolves, changes season by season, year by year. Some are older and not producing as much and will shuffle off Timmermeister’s farm at some point, but it’s a family nevertheless. Some gave birth and are now rich with milk. There’s Dinah III out there in the field, and Alexis Nickel and Sparkles Stormy and Button. Yes, they’re a business acquisition (Timmermeister makes French Camembert cheese, among other things, from the milk he harvests), but they’re also an extension of his family. They stay out in all kinds of weather, even after Timmermeister built a fine barn to shield them from the storms. We’re in Seattle, after all, and even today the skies above us are melancholic gray and the cold is near biting and the dozen-plus jersey cows out on his pasture lands don’t seem to give one whit about our sneakers or how dirty they might become. “The fields have been flooded because of all the rain.” It has rained. “You’re going to get those shoes muddy, I’m afraid,” Kurt Timmermeister, the dairy farmer, tells us, looking down at our Converse sneakers. ![]()
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