photo by J. Sinclair

The sun is still rising over Julian’s Homeland Creamery when an anxious group of first-graders steps off their field trip bus. While the class has traveled a mere 30 minutes, coming from Alamance Christian School in Burlington, the looks on their faces say they think they’ve landed on another planet.

“Do they even have electricity here?” asks one of the kids.

Tour guide Diana Euliss smiles as the children’s curiosity swells. In a few minutes she’ll be giving an in-depth lesson on milk, where it comes from, and how it’s made. But for now, she’s content to sit back and let little imaginations take over. “You’d be surprised how many kids we get who have never seen a cow before,” Euliss says. “A lot of them think that milk comes straight from the store.”

With her down-home dairy wisdom, it seems Euliss has been guiding tours on the farm her entire life. Truthfully though, she’s only been at it for a few years. “I was an insurance agent for 30 years before coming to work here,” Euliss recalls. “The stress level there got to be too much, so one day I just walked out and quit.”

Now, nearly three years later, the switch to the simple life seems to be paying off. “This sure beats selling insurance,” she says, laughing.

A Countryside Ride

To start the tour, Euliss directs the kids onto an old, rickety wagon lined with bales of hay. “A hayride is really the only way to tour a farm,” she says.

After a slight jerk and a whiff of diesel fuel, the ride begins. It’s here that the kids are first introduced to the nearly 300 cows roaming around the farm.

“These are our milkers,” Euliss says as she points toward one of the pastures. “Anybody want to guess how many boy cows are out there?” she asks.

“A million!” says one of the kids.

Euliss laughs. This is the part of the job she loves.

“Actually,” she says, “There’s not any. You see, all cows are females. The boy cows are called bulls.”

It’s these little drops of knowledge that make a tour at Homeland such a unique learning experience — not just for kids, but for adults too.

Later in the ride, one of the parents decides to chime in: “I hear we get chocolate milk from the brown cows.” Euliss plays right along: “We sure do,” she jokes. “And we get strawberry milk from the red cows!”

The tractor rolls along before making another stop in front of the farm’s so-called “maternity ward,” which holds the pregnant cows. This particular pasture also contains the farm’s resident llama, Little Joe.

Little Joe is just one of the animals that visitors get a chance to see up-close on the tour. A wild turkey, a pair of goats, and a group of Mediterranean donkeys also greet guests. The donkeys are especially intriguing because of a natural crosslike symbol on their backs. The symbol is a fitting one, as it’s believed that this particular breed of donkey carried Mary on her journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

After circling through a few lush fields, the wagon comes to a halt at the front of the farm. The day is just getting started, however, as the “hands-on” portion of the tour is about to begin. The kids first get to hand-feed a calf, and then hand-milk an artificial cow.

From there, the group heads inside the dairy’s milking parlor where Euliss reflects on the farm’s history, highlighting just how far it has come.

Making Milk, the Homeland Way

Homeland Creamery is owned and operated by brothers Chris and David Bowman, along with their wives, Jayne and Terry. The brothers purchased the farm in the 1980s from their father, who had been running it since the 1930s with his brother. In the early days, the farm had a mere 12 cows, all of which had to be milked by hand. Now, an automated system allows them to milk nearly 200 cows a day.

But just because the machinery has changed doesn’t mean the work has gotten any easier. Chris and David often wake up long before the rooster crows to get started on the day’s operations. The brothers start processing the first batch of milk just after midnight, finishing up around 9 a.m. It’s here that the secret behind Homeland’s product is revealed.

While most milk has to be shipped off to plants, the Bowmans do all the processing, pasteurizing, and packaging onsite. This gives them complete control over the quality of the milk, and, in turn, a better product.

One of the biggest differences in Homeland’s milk is the way it’s pasteurized. By definition, pasteurization involves heating milk to kill bacteria and other pathogens. At large dairy farms, the goal is to pasteurize milk in as little time as possible. To do this, the farms employ a process known as ultra-short time, which involves heating the milk to 175 degrees for 15 seconds. The Bowmans, however, choose to take an old-fashioned approach. Instead of quickly cooking the milk in extreme heat, they warm it for 30 minutes at 145 degrees.

The difference in method means a difference in taste. “Our milk is more cooked, and that makes it much creamier,” Terry says. “It takes a lot more time, sure, but we’re more interested in the flavor of the milk than the time it takes to make it.”

Terry also notes that the freshness of the milk is directly related to the proximity with which it’s distributed. Since the milk is only carried by local stores, customers can be sure they’re getting a product that is literally right off the farm.

“Most store milk has to travel thousands of miles before it gets to the grocery store,” Terry says. “By the time it gets there, it’s nearly a week old. But our milk can be processed in the morning and sitting on the store shelves by that night.”

Milk isn’t the only good produced at Homeland, however. Butter, sausage, cheese, even soaps are made at the farm. But there’s one item in particular that everyone agrees is the sweetest of them all: ice cream.

A Sweet Send-Off

It’s now nearly an hour into the tour, and little by little, the kids are growing restless. After all, the process of pasteurization isn’t exactly fascinating to the first-grade mind. That’s when Euliss decides to ask the kids a question — one she knows will get their full attention.

“So who here is ready for some ice cream?”

In an instance, the kids erupt in excitement. And if you’ve ever sampled some of Homeland’s ice cream, you’ll know why. Much like the milk, the ice cream has a creamy richness that puts other blends to shame.

With the tour now wrapping up, the kids finish off their treats and head back to the schoolbus. Euliss waves goodbye as the group slowly pulls out of sight. With her day of work completed, she turns and heads for the creamery shop. “Told you this beats selling insurance,” she says.

But for the Bowmans, the work is just getting started. In a few hours, David and Chris will be back in the milking parlor and the whole pasteurization process will start over. While the family admits the work can be daunting, they say they hope it serves as a valuable lesson to those in the community.

“We really think we do a good job of educating the kids,” Terry says. “We want to show them how milk is made and where it comes from. But we also want them to know that hard work can pay off.”

After tasting one sample of Homeland Creamery’s dairy products, its safe to say that the Bowmans’ hard work has paid off, and will continue to pay off for years to come. That, in fact, is something you can bet the farm on.

Homeland Creamery , 6506 Bowman Dairy Rd. in Julian.