Vaulted ceilings and a cheerful fire in the wood cook stove greet me in the tasting room at Domina Dairy and Creamery. John and Sheila Ahmann say the space isn’t done yet, but it’s plenty finished enough to enjoy a chunk of their homemade bread, as far as I’m concerned. Ham from one of their pigs is sizzling on the stovetop. Sheila pops open a bottle of the pink wine she made a couple of years ago. She shows me a set of World War II photos – her father served in the Philippines – that hang on one of the wood-paneled walls, behind the counter. John leans over a twelve-pound round of cheese, working a double-handled cheese knife through its middle.
Outside, a face appears in the small window to the right of the stove. When I ask which cow it is, Sheila smiles.
“It’s Jules,” she says. “She knows we’re in here.”
Though the Ahmanns built the creamery on their farm in Chehalis only a year ago, John has been making cheese for a more than a decade. He grew up on his family’s dairy farm, a 75-cow operation just eight miles from here. For seven years, John leased the dairy on the property from his retired parents, making cheese on the premises until they sold the farm in 2010.
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