Featured Landowner: Poor Orphan Creamery
When Lark Gilmer bought a home in the Basque of France she learned sheep could be milked and she could use that milk to make cheese.
2017 Spring/Summerby Jodie DeLay
Extension External Relations Coordinator
Grade school kids are her favorite; when they visit the tasting room they “get it,” says Lark Gilmer of Poor Orphan Creamery. Gilmer is a cheesemaker, a shepherd, a photographer, an entrepreneur, a grant-writer, an innovator, an agricultural enthusiast, a mentor, and an educator. She is the founder and owner of Montana’s first sheep dairy and Grade A portable milking parlor.
Born in Minnesota, Gilmer always had a love for sheep. Her career as a commercial photographer took her to England and France. There, she looked for opportunities to care for sheep, helping to lamb and learning from shepherds. In Oxford, she experienced cheesemaking with one of Britain’s leading cheesemongers, Major Patrick Rance. It was when she bought a home in the Basque of France that she learned sheep could be milked and that she could use that milk to make cheese. She had found her calling.
Gilmer came to Montana in 2003 and began thinking earnestly about how she could turn her passion into a living. She knew that the cost of land, sheep, milking and manufacturing facilities, utilities, and round-the-clock labor could be prohibitive, but that didn’t stop her. She researched state and federal law and various funding opportunities and started down a path that only someone, she says, “with a border collie mentality, unwilling to let go,” would undertake.
Montana law requires property owners to manage noxious weeds and applies penalties for violations (MCA 7-22-21). Gilmer observed that people were coming to Montana in hopes of a country lifestyle and purchasing tracts of land that they often didn’t have the time or knowledge to care for. Rather than buying her own land, she approached landowners and offered to run her sheep on their land to help them meet weed management requirements for a lease agreement of one dollar. Gilmer was able to secure enough leased land to care for her flock. “Landowners get sheep on their property, to be seen as good stewards and good community members, and to be part of an awesome end product,” says Gilmer. “It is a win, win.”
To make her business model pencil out, Gilmer’s flock consists of around 170 Icelandic sheep, which she owns. Per Gilmer, her sheep give about 1 cup per ewe per milking compared to 5-7 gallons per day for cows. In order to harvest their milk, Gilmer worked tirelessly to obtain funding for a portable Grade A milking parlor. Though common in Europe, the concept of a portable parlor without land ownership was new in Montana, and, as a result, met some resistance.
“It’s been an epic and even a biblical journey to follow this through,” said Gilmer. “A lot of people are trained to say no, and you just can’t take no for an answer. Persistence leads to success. It makes people know you are serious when you don’t quit.”
Gilmer eventually called then Governor Schweitzer who connected her with the Montana Milk Control Bureau. Fifty people showed up at the resulting meeting to discuss her project. Ultimately, Gilmer received two grants and a loan from the State of Montana’s Growth Through Agriculture (GTA) program to purchase the milking parlor, as well as to pay for construction and equipment.
Gilmer also worked with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development office for federal grants. “Go meet them,” she says. “People told me that if you don’t have i’s dotted and t’s crossed you’ll be rejected, so I went in and introduced myself, told them I was nervous, and asked for help.” She made several return visits and her persistence paid off. Gilmer received a USDA Value-Added Producer grant and a Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Improvement grant to cover costs of solar electric and solar hot water. Gilmer commends both the State and the USDA, noting they were helpful and supportive, especially once they realized she wasn’t going to go away.
During these years, Gilmer was also searching for the perfect location for a creamery. She discovered Laurin, a once thriving mining community founded by Frenchman, Jean Baptiste Laurin, and located in the Ruby Valley near Alder Gulch. Now an unincorporated ghost town, it has maintained its French charm and had an old surplus store that met her needs for the creamery. And, it came with an added bonus. Her sheep, and the portable parlor, were pastured on leased land directly next door.
While Montana law has only a Grade B cheese requirement, Gilmer’s operation is Grade A rated. For someone building a commercial facility, she recommends working with the state inspector from the start. “I had to jump through a few hoops to prove I was serious,” she said. “But they are very helpful, very respectful and very willing to be a part of trying to make your business successful.”
The Poor Orphan Creamery, named in honor of Laurin’s history housing orphans and the generosity of its people, officially opened in May 2014. Gilmer’s facility allows her to craft fine artisan cheeses made both from her sheep milk and from cow milk that she sources from the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge.
In 2016, Gilmer added a tasting room. Cow milk cheeses are vastly different than sheep milk cheeses. She starts by offering a familiar cheese, like feta and goes through the stinky and the blue cheeses. She ends with sheep milk cheese and says, “There is always a pause, and then a wow. It’s just awesome. They start with a prejudice about cheese, and I get to open their minds.”
After originally being turned down for a wine and beer license, she was able to get one thanks to her research, persistence, and rural location. All summer long she did cheese education, starting with France and then Spain and Italy. She cooked and did farm to table dinners. In December they hosted a fondue night and an Evening in Tuscany.
When tourists visit they can meet the animals. “Icelandic sheep are very beautiful,“ says Gilmer. “They aren’t skittish or mean and kids and others can interact with them.” On some occasions, kids are able to try milking, tasting the milk, making a quick cheese, and eating the cheese.
Gilmer acknowledges that work in agriculture is hard. It is physically and emotionally demanding and requires the ability to adjust on the fly. It can be very difficult on relationships and doesn’t always have great monetary reward. As she finishes her third year in business, she notes that she still can’t pay herself, but she is paying other people. Nevertheless, agriculture, she says, is a glorious challenge for those who are called to it and she is happy to help others get started. She has a great passion for teaching, especially youth. “I can change the way a kid looks at food forever,” she said. “For me that has huge value. It is the most rewarding.”