Beecher's Handmade Cheese

3 Corner Field Farm is the product of years of hard work and Karen Weinberg’s lifelong dream to have a farm. Although Karen knew she wanted a farm, it wasn’t until she and her husband spent two years in France with their daughters (they went for Paul’s work) that she fell in love with sheep’s milk cheeses and started to think about having sheep and making cheese. Today, 3 Corner milks approximately 100 ewes from late spring through early winter. The ewes and all of their offspring (males and females) are raised on the farms 120 acres of pasture. Lambs are weaned and transitioned to pasture after 4-5 weeks and the remainder of the ewes’ milk is transformed into yogurt, fresh cheese, feta, a soft-ripened camembert style cheese, and aged cheeses like the Frere Fumant and Battenkill Brebis. The animals at 3 Corner look vibrant and healthy, as do the pastures, but it’s when Karen and Paul talk about what they do and how they do it that everything gets much more interesting. For example, they raise all lambs born on the farm; Those not destined to be milkers are raised for meat. The lambs are also weaned in a very specific way so as to not stress the lambs or their mothers. A strong consideration of what is best for the land and the animals is at the root of all decisions made on the farm. Karen started out selling fluid milk, yogurt, fresh, and bloomy rind cheeses - all things that only required minimal aging. In order to make aged cheeses, Karen had to convince her husband to convert the basement of their home on the farm into a cheese cave-- they completed the project in 2007. It is ideally suited for this purpose because it is below ground and constructed from stone. That allows for some moisture transfer and helps maintain humidity.

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