Where the stars shine
triking red barn roofs are the first things to catch your eye, followed by the picturesque view of cows roaming an open field, grazing happily. A short gravel driveway leads down to the milk parlor, the farm store, and of course, the cows themselves.
All of this and more make up Blue Ribbon Dairy, a small dairy farm outside of Tallassee. Run by Auburn University College of Agriculture alumna Michaela Sanders Wilson, Blue Ribbon Dairy is one of only 13 licensed dairies in the state and is built on history.
She doesn’t miss a single one.
This is the strong part of community that Wilson tries to bring to her farm. “The sole purpose of a dairy like this is to connect people to their food,” she said.
The farm opens at 2 p.m. every day, seven days a week for curious visitors. As they come in waves down the gravel drive, there are opportunities to pet the calves, visit the store to buy milk or homemade ice cream, and the best part, get up close and personal with the cows to learn how the milking works on a small scale. Today’s visitors shuffle into the barn and stand on the side, soaking in the process.
“I wanted to provide an opportunity for people around here and the surrounding areas to really come visit and really see firsthand what we do,” Wilson said.
Wilson carries on the legacy of her family as a fourth-generation farmer. When the original dairy her grandfather ran closed in 2005, she always knew she wanted to bring it back.
“Well, I guess I’m crazy,” she said. “I like cows and I like the dairy industry and people are just so removed from that they really don’t know much.”
She reopened the dairy, rebranded as Blue Ribbon Dairy, in 2017 in the same barn her great-grandfather built in 1947.
One of the biggest differences in the milk from Blue Ribbon Dairy is that it is a cream-line milk. “Our milk is vat pasteurized, which means it’s kind of like a double boiler. We heat it to 145 degrees and hold it there for 40 minutes. In normal milk, they do what’s called a high temperature, short time pasteurization.”
“My milk isn’t homogenized; the cream rises to the top,” Wilson explained. “Some people are confused for the first time because they aren’t used to it. We do it this way because of the taste. The milk doesn’t taste ‘cooked.’”
Other than milk, Blue Ribbon Dairy also makes its own ice cream. The flavors vary, but there are between 20 and 30 at a time. They also bottle and sell flavored milk like chocolate, strawberry, cookies and cream, and mocha among others. With a new expansion into a new building on the property, they went from 200 gallons bottled in a day to the capacity to bottle up to 1,300 in a day.
But like many jobs in the agriculture sector, it’s not an easy one. “I mean I pay my dairy bills, I don’t take nothing home,” Wilson joked.
With a smile on her face, Wilson talked about how there’s no down time, and maybe some sleep is involved. When you’re milking cows every twelve hours, you’re always on call. Sometimes it’s a 22-hour day, but that’s just how it is. “My five-year-old goes with me at 2 o’clock in the morning if there’s a cow down and she’s either screaming for me or asleep in the truck, one of the two.
“I don’t hide anything,” she added. “On social media, I try to show the good because there’s negativity every single day. You turn around and lose money. Cows get sick, the heat is terrible on them, it goes on and on.”
But, that doesn’t stop Blue Ribbon Dairy and her employees from carrying on the family legacy with nothing but gratitude and smiles on their faces.
“I just wanted something for people to come see,” Sanders said. “My granddaddy liked people, and I like people, most days.”
“I know I can take the farm for granted, but I love every bit of it. There are some people that never get to see the stars shine. We have every bit of the night sky here.”
