They left a life of working for the big cheese to work instead for the real cheese, and while it’s still hard work, it’s also very fulfilling work.

Catherine and Al Renzi, a couple formerly beholden to pharmaceuticals and finance, now run their eight-acre Yellow Springs Farm and raise 100 goats for cheese in rural Chester Springs.

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“We could earn more money doing practically anything else,” Catherine said in a Daily Local News report by Brian McCullough. “To connect to the earth, to be part of the ecosystem, that’s so important to us.”

The fruit of their labors is no less rewarding than the corporate world, though. Yellow Springs Farm recently posted a one-two-three finish in the American Cheese Society Awards. The cheeses they make and age for months are typically sold to retailers like Kimberton Whole Foods, Whole Foods, and McCaffrey’s Food Markets, as well as direct to restaurant kitchens.

“A lot of people focus on the romance of farming and not the business of farming,” Al said. “There’s no formula, no book to read. So you just take it one step at a time, and hope in the long run you are providing a product people want. But it’s a 24-7 lifestyle.”

Read more about that lifestyle in the Daily Local News here, and check out previous VISTA Today coverage of Yellow Springs Farm here.

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