Albemarle County Nuns Live The Gouda Life

Every Thursday, sisters at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Crozet exchange their religious habits for work clothes and rubber boots to make cheese.

The sisters make 600 pounds of Gouda cheese each week, and about 20,000 pounds per year, every year, for the past 20 years.

"It is our tradition to earn our own living, to be like the rest of the world. Earn your bread," said Sister Barbara Smickel.

The cheese-making day begins at 4:15 in the morning when the first shift of sisters pasteurize the milk and transfer it to an open vat in the cheese barn. Next, a new shift of sisters "clock in" to turn the milk into cheese.

After about four days of work, the result is around 300 two-pound wheels of Monastery Country Cheese. The cheese then sits on the shelves at Our Lady of the Angels until it is sold.

"Most of it goes out during the months of November and December, and a lot of it goes out as gifts," said Sister Kathy Ullrich.

And the sisters have become fond of their own cheese over the years.

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