Patience, Craft, and a Cheese Called Orchard Blue

childhood pursuits

When I was 14, my mom and I started a cheese business.

I ran with it for three years. I had some remarkable breakthroughs, and it changed me profoundly.

But to tell that story, I need to back up.

I’m one of ten kids. Having five talented brothers above me, I was always searching for “my thing.” A strong internal urge to prove myself. It was both a positive and a negative, but today I’ll focus on the positive.

I was constantly dreaming, tinkering, making. But I didn’t just want to make things—I wanted to make money.

Some of my early ventures:

• bottled home-brew soda (some exploded - I have some funny stories there)
• a typewriter flip hustle (buying antiques at thrift stores, reselling on eBay)
• made-to-order pies, gourmet jerky, and eventually, cheese

It was eclectic, but each one taught me something.

seed planted early

Cheesemaking wasn’t original to me.

When I was a baby, my mom and her friends started a small cheese business. She stepped away to raise and homeschool us, but her friend Rebeccah kept it going.

At 11, I got my first “job” there, carefully brushing and flipping wheels as they aged.

A couple years later, our family moved to rural Idaho. We bought two Jersey cows, and soon had more milk than we knew what to do with.

I saw a business opportunity.

And that’s when my mom and I began making cheese—for real.

finding my obsession

We started with the easy ones: yogurt and mozzarella.

But I don’t ease into things. I went all-in. I was obsessed.

I converted an old fridge into a makeshift aging room and ordered exotic cultures with names I couldn’t pronounce from a thick cheesemaker’s catalog.

Our kitchen became my lab, and my experiments were conducted daily.

Watching milk transform—into yogurt, into curds, into creamy, fluffy-rinded Camembert—felt like magic. I dove headfirst into more advanced, aged varieties like clothbound Cheddar and Gruyère.

market test

The nearby college town of Moscow, Idaho, had a bustling farmers market. After pestering the manager relentlessly, my dad and I finally secured a booth.

That was the turning point.

Cheesemaking demands patience, which is something I’ve never had much of. Weeks, months or even years of waiting to test and tweak. It was frustrating at times.

And wow, did I have some epic flops. Entire batches I’d been proudly aging for months only to find utterly inedible when it came time to cut and package for market.

the golden discovery

One day, on a whim, I began washing wheels of aging blue cheese with freshly-pressed apple cider from our own trees.

Somehow, it actually worked.

The wheels turned golden, with a bright, fruity aroma and flavor perfectly balancing the bold, tangy bite of the blue.

I called it Orchard Blue.

That summer, we incorporated as Brush Creek Creamery.

Market sales jumped from $300 to $1,500, and we got our cheese into a few local restaurants and grocery stores.

To meet growing demand, my brothers and I built a small facility next to our house with a milking parlor, make room, and aging cave. We bought an old soup cauldron from a restaurant supply and repurposed it as our cheese vat.

Then, a year later, my mom’s old cheesemaking friend Rebeccah and her husband Brian moved to Idaho. They became my first real “bosses.” I had no idea just how badly I—or the fledgling business—needed them.

With their expertise and organizational know-how, the business took off.

As I wrote about last week, our family and friends pitched in together and bought an old abandoned Ford garage in the nearby town of Deary. We completely restored the building, turning it into an artisan bakery and cafe.

A part of that beautiful building became a state-of-the-art home for the creamery.

For three years, I poured my whole heart into it.

letting go

Eventually, the day came when it was time to move on.

I started working full-time in construction. The next chapter had begun.

But my experience making cheese changed my life. The lessons of craft, hard work, patience, and perseverance will stick with me forever.

Today, Brush Creek Creamery ships nationwide and has won multiple national awards, including First Place for Orchard Blue at the American Cheese Society competition.

If you're ever in Deary, Idaho, consider stopping by to taste and see.

Aging wheels of Orchard Blue in one of the “caves”

what really matters

What a hands-on, heart-first endeavor can do for a young person, a family, a small town, cannot be overstated.

I believe business should be more than a way to make money.

It should build character, strengthen families, transform communities.

It’s time to reignite a spirit of craftsmanship. Doing stuff that matter, in a way that matters, with relationships that matter.

Because in the end, the real craft wasn’t just the cheese. It’s what was being shaped in my heart, my character, my soul.

And that work is very much still in progress. I’m deeply thankful for that.

I hope I can be a parent to my kids like mine were to me, prioritizing not just wonder and curiosity, but work and character.

And I hope I can be a friend as caring, sharpening, and faithful as Brian and Rebeccah were/are to me.

That’s the kind of work worth doing. That’s what really matters.