news-record.com

PELHAM — Twenty years ago, it was a hardscrabble tobacco farm that had fallen on hard times, even before the demise of what once had been North Carolina’s mainstay crop.

Now, it’s a working farm once again, but specializing in a product that doesn’t exactly have a deep-rooted Tar Heel tradition — goat cheese.

Della Williams says the 160-acre Sleepy Goat Farm, with its 46 goats , could do good things for this rural area near the Virginia line.

“Our long-range plan is to change this former tobacco farm into a sustainable enterprise that would be something good for the entire community,” said Williams, a semiretired neurologist  who runs the farm with her husband, Jon Dorman,  also a neurologist.

What started out as a weekend retreat where two physicians raised a pair of pet goats has now morphed into a full-time operation.

And it’s a place Triad residents can experience in several ways that include visiting the second Sunday of each month from May through August. The annual series of open houses begins today at 2 p.m.

Sleepy Goat cheeses are sold in a variety of locations around the region, from the Rockingham County Farmer’s Market at Chinqua Penn to several outlets in the Chapel Hill area, Caswell County and Williams’ hometown of Danville, Va.

And if you really want to find out how a goat farm operates, the couple offers overnight rentals in a rustic cabin that is equipped with all the modern conveniences. Lodgers can get a crash course in goat-cheese making for an added fee.

It’s a long way from 1989,  when Williams and Dorman shared a neurology practice in Danville and were looking for a place to get away from the grind.

What attracted them to the run-down farm was something about as far from goats as you can imagine: frogs.

When they crossed a small stream flowing across the land,  “there were thousands of them leaping all over the place,” she recalls. “There was just something about that. It made both of us decide that this was the place.”

For years, they kept it as their retreat, entrusting it to a farm family to keep it running, even while they spent a decade practicing medicine in Dubai  in the Middle East.

That changed in 2003 when their caretakers decided to leave, forcing Williams and Dorman to choose between their practice in the United Arab Emirates  or a simple farming life in the North Carolina countryside.

In getting started, they sought help and advice from the state Department of Agriculture as well as the folks at the better-established Goat Lady Dairy in Climax.

They added automated milking machinery, lab equipment to keep track of the goats’ health, and specially designed “browsing” fields that help keep their animals worm-free.

These days, they’re milking 15 goats every morning with plans for 30 this summer, now that the does or nannies have given birth to their kids.

It’s all aimed at making cheeses that include such well-known varieties as blue, Brie and feta, but also specialty blends such as the Cezanne with a flavor similar to the more familiar Muenster.

Now, Williams looks back to what she jokingly calls the “series of unfortunate events” that led her and Dorman into the cheese-making business, starting with one nanny goat that gave birth to one kid.

“We started milking the goat and then we were drinking the milk,” she said. “And it wasn’t long before I learned to make cheese.”

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com