Goats, grit and good cheese—life on a farm that runs on patience and milk.
March 22, 2026 – Half a mile down a dirt road off of GA Highway 21, an hour north of here, our car turns into a tree-walled entryway, and I can’t see a thing on either side. As the land opens up, there’s a freshly tilled field to my right, dark brown soil waiting to be sown with seeds, butting up against a fence with tall grasses beyond. Two hulking, snow-colored Anatolian shepherds come to inspect us at the car doors. A darker dog, more beige-furred with a darker muzzle, comes across the yard from the left corner, her mother pouch swaying above the head of a trotting white puppy. Another pup, darker like his mother, plays in the open barn house door.
“Chris!”
Richard emerges from the porch door, green eyes smiling along with his sun-carved face. The Anatolians, now assured of our welcome status, nuzzle my cheek, all four feet on the ground. A graying blue heeler yaps while prancing across the porch.
“Griff, settle down, now,” Richard says as he hands his hired hand, Antony Gonzalez, a bucket with twelve rubber nipples around it. The guard dogs, who carry out their patrol duties during the night hours, go off to doze. I’ve arrived just before the kids’ afternoon feeding time, but Richard first wants to show me his dairy operation.
Before he started the farm fifteen years ago, Richard worked as a builder — both a private contractor and for the city of Savannah. His farmhouse stands as a testament to his skill. As we enter, a door to the left leads upstairs, where Richard and his wife Wendy live, but I’m drawn to the right by the sweet and pleasantly funky aroma of goat’s milk. Two upright posts support a wire above a drain-outfitted table in the center of the room. Wendy mixed the milk and rennet to make chevre and hung a cheesecloth sack full of the mixture from this wire before heading to Memorial Hospital for one of her twice weekly nursing shifts. Richard took it down just an hour before my arrival, getting the chevre into a tub and in the colder room for storage, lest it start to spoil. On her days off from the hospital, she will mix more batches of the curds with cheese-making strains of bacteria from places as far as Spain and France before placing them on shelves in the less cooled room, where they will set for 62 days.
A four-foot-tall open-top octagonal tank stands along the wall to the left of the entry door. It’s outfitted with a paddle set into a middle rod, like a large ice cream churn, that stirs the rennet through the milk. Three smaller rooms, two of them climate-controlled for storing fresh chèvre and aging hard cheeses, are set into the perpendicular wall, separated by a small corridor that leads to the milking line, which the lactating goats can enter from the yard.
Hours before the sun rises, Richard wakes and goes out to the field where the does roam. The does that recently gave birth were marked with colored bands around their ankles. Richard scatters a mixture of grain and peanut hay in a path that entices them toward the milking line, while Anthony feeds the other goats. Once in position, five on each side of the milking line, the goats eat from the central trough as Richard slips two soft pumping machines, connected by tubes to a central bladder, over each goat’s udders. The bladders connect to a central vacuum above the milking line, and the pressure draws the milk into a pipe that carries it to a cooled 100-gallon tank, where it can be held at 40°F for three days.
Another pipe snakes through a hole in the wall and empties into the pasteurization tank. Heating elements in its metal panels bring the milk to 145°F, and a heat gun, like an industrial-grade hair dryer, fits into a large lid, raising the surface temperature to 155°F. A wire from a smaller probe in the lid runs to a graphing machine mounted on the wall. The circular graph tracks the milk’s temperature along a radial axis as time moves around the circumference.
I ask Richard if he ever refers to the graphs he keeps in a trapper keeper on a shelf beside another notebook with the goats’ family trees, ensuring against unacceptable inbreeding.
“Not for myself,” he says, “but if a tourist at the market gets cheese, spends all day on Bay Street, and eats it after spending all day in the sun, I can show them that it’s not because of anything I did.”
I’m still shaking my head as Anthony mixes goat’s and cow’s milk in the nippled bucket, and Richard helps me through the door. It’s a hot day, and only a couple of chickens wander the yard, the rest choosing to remain in the second barn on Richard’s property. Three geese lay on nests near a small pond, incubating a total of some twenty goslings that will be added to the population. A guinea hen, producing a few eggs that can be sold at market, bleats in the background.
And to the right, the animals that most inspire my fantasies of moving out of town and into the countryside…
A symphony of high-pitched “meh-eh-eh-eh”s and even higher, shorter “aeh”s draws my eyes to an open, two-sided shed. Twenty babies—ranging from one day to nine weeks old—cluster on one side, with about the same number of ten- to twelve-week-old kids on the other. A white Saanen, the most rambunctious of the three goat breeds at the farm, slips through the wire door as I enter, and Richard scoops him back in with one hand. With the other, he hands me a bottle of colostrum, the first milk produced after birth.
When Anthony sets the feed bucket down, a few of the babies head toward it of their own volition. Others—Saanens atop cinder blocks, floppy-eared Nubians hopping over their brothers, and brown Alpine crosses inspecting my wheelchair—must be directed. Soon, twelve of them are sucking in unison, rotating out as they get their fill, while I hold a still-warm bottle of colostrum to the face of a newborn Alpine struggling to find its footing and refusing to drink, still full from its morning feeding. Richard cradles its face and tilts the bottle, coaxing down a few sips.
The farm’s three bucks—fathers to most of the kids I’ve met, except when outside bucks are brought in to increase genetic diversity—are off on their own, swaggering in a spacious lot at the edge of the trees. These guys are as tall and large as the Anatolians, can impregnate six does at a time during breeding season, and look like they could put up a heck of a fight against any marauding coyotes.
The dogs, with acutely attuned ears, noses sensitive to the faintest scent, and quick, crushingly strong legs, can reach any point on the fifty-acre farm within minutes, jumping over or crawling under fences to defend their flock. They are the coolest collection of animals not my own that I’ve ever known.
As I’m leaving, Richard and I lean against the fence by a freshly tilled patch of land, and he tells me about the plants he sows for the goats. He plans to plant sericea lespedeza, a natural dewormer. The plant is invasive, normally spreading like wildfire, but the goats, he says, are “browsers” and will eat any tall growth they come across—even after the 126 bales of hay and ton of grain he brings in every twelve days. As a result, it won’t overrun the land, and the goats won’t need commercial dewormer, which can take them out of the milking line for two weeks.
A doe sticks her head through the fence and nibbles on the back of Richard’s shirt. He leans into her as the sun shines overhead.
Bootleg Beer Cheese Rarebit
Ingredients
- 10.5 oz. goat cheddar, grated
- 6 oz. Samuel Smith Imperial Stout (about 7% ABV, 35 IBU; substitute a similar dark beer if needed)
- 5 tbsp. unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 15 oz. whole milk
- 1 1/2 tbsp. Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp. fish sauce (Worcestershire sauce also works)
- 2 generous pinches thyme leaves
- 1 loaf sourdough bread (Flora and Fauna loaves work well)
- Softened unsalted butter, for toasting
- Minced chives (or garlic chives, if available)
Method
- In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Once melted, whisk in the flour. Cook, whisking constantly, for about 8 minutes, until the roux is dark blond in color.
- Gradually add the beer, whisking until fully incorporated. Continue cooking and whisking for about 3 minutes to cook off the alcohol.
- Gradually add the milk, whisking until smooth. Increase heat to medium.
- Add the cheddar, mustard, fish sauce and thyme. Cook for 7–10 minutes, whisking regularly, until the sauce is thick but still pourable.
- At this point, the sauce can be cooled and refrigerated until ready to use.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Using a serrated knife, cut the bread into 1 1/2- to 2-inch-thick slices. Trim rounded ends if desired. Spread softened butter on both sides of each slice.
- Place slices on a sheet pan and toast in the oven for 8–10 minutes, until golden brown and crisp.
- Remove from the oven and spread one side of each slice with the beer cheese. Return to the oven for 4–6 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbling.
- Transfer to a plate or serving platter and sprinkle with minced chives.
Enjoy with company—or by yourself. Cheese doesn’t judge.
About the author
Chris Underwood is a Fayette County native who once happened upon a used copy of Kitchen Confidential while picking up his 9th grade summer reading at the Omega Bookstore. He’s been fascinated with food and the people who grow and cook it ever since. On Saturdays, he’ll probably be at the Forsyth Farmer’s Market buying fresh ingredients for delicious meals he prepares and posts to his Facebook page.
LATEST BY CHRIS UNDERWOOD
- Aura Farming in South Georgia, Set to Song
- Living in Joy at Bootleg Farm
- Stinging sun & soaked soil – A Farmer Adapts
- Bringing the Inside Out – Beekeeping and Redemption
- Blueberries, Bugs and a Farmer Named Forrest
If you find value in this website, please consider contributing above or via Paypal to help cover the costs. You can also send contributions via Venmo @Savannah_Agenda. Your support, no matter how much you give, is appreciated and will help ensure the future viability of this community resource. You can also show your support by subscribing below and sharing Savannah Agenda with others via email or social media. Increasing readership is critical to the long-term success of this site.
READ MORE BY CHRIS UNDERWOOD
