Wisconsin 2023 - Day 5

June 8, 2023 (Thursday)

We switched things around a little today, doing our factory tour first thing. We were heading off to visit Union Star Cheese, where a fresh batch of cheese is made each morning. Teri had called and they recommended arriving around 7:00 to see the completion of the process. 

We arrived at 7:00, walked inside, and found ourselves in a hot, steamy room!  They start the cheesemaking process at 4:00 a.m. each day, so had already completed much of it. When we arrived the 10,500 pounds of milk had already been pasteurized, rennet and bacteria added, and the solution heated to 106 degrees for almost an hour. Most of the whey had been drained off and the curds had been solidified into dozens of slabs of soft cheese. 

When we arrived they had just started feeding the slabs into a machine that was chopping them into about 1" cubes. 

This process continued down the length of a long stainless steel trough.  The cubes were stirred continuously while cutting continued. 

Did I mention that the room was hot and humid?  These guys were really putting in the work!

Once all of the slabs had been chopped up, copious amounts of salt were broadcast onto the cubes as the entire batch was continuously mixed. This is not a low-sodium product!

Mixing continued as the salt causes the last of the whey to release and drain off. 

The end result was a little over 1000 pounds of (very) fresh cheese curds. Their motto is "So fresh they squeak", which is the truth!

We were given samples of the still warm cheese curds to try.  They do actually give a little "squeak" when you bite into them.  They seemed really salty and I wonder if that dissipates some with time. They not only sell curds in the store, but they deliver them to grocery and convenience stores and restaurants every morning. One morning each week they make string cheese. 

While some of the curds are sold fresh, much is processed into different types of cheese by adding in other ingredients, molding it into blocks, and in some cases aging it for up to two years. 

The refrigerated aging room.  

Some of this cheese has been here for almost 2 years.

Plenty of varieties for purchase.

It had been another really interesting tour, this time with a little snack at the end!

From Union Star we headed less than 30 minutes north to the Mosquito Hill Nature Preserve. This is a 441 acre preserve operated by the county. It borders the Wolf River and contains a stand of bottomland hardwood forest. 

In the Visitor Center parking lot there was a beautiful pollinator garden with a metal sculpture depicting their namesake. 

It was warm and sunny and luckily we didn't run across many of these guys, and none this large!

We enjoyed a nice walk through the forest and out in some clearings. We saw a few of their breeding birds in the forest, and dragonflies and butterflies in the open fields. 

Baltimore Oriole

Clubtail type Dragonfly

Interesting fly

House Wren singing

Little Wood-Satyr

Red-spotted Admiral

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

I had been unseasonably warm the past couple of days (the story of our life...) and things were getting pretty quiet, so we headed back toward our cottage, got lunch, and relaxed outside for the rest of the afternoon. 

That evening we headed over to the Horicon Marsh NWR for a quick trip around the auto loop road. We planned to come back the next morning but wanted to get a preview. 

There is a floating boardwalk section and we headed out onto it. We saw quite a few Black Terns which are birds we don't get to see very often. Most terns are saltwater birds, but not these. They were zooming around, occasionally dropping to the water's surface to (hopefully) pick off a small fish. 

Black Tern with fish

There were also Tree Swallows catching insects over the water. It was a good place to end the day. 

Tree Swallow

Next: Horicon Marsh and the steel Mammoth