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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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A day at the dairy

Mike and Trish Vieira have opened a micro dairy on Spokane's West Plains. They call it Spokane's Family Farm and produce minimally pasteurized whole milk. It's a labor of love for Mike, who has worked in the industry and always wanted to try his hand at running an independent dairy, selling his milk under his own label.

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Family Farm celebrates first year

Spokane’s Family Farm is celebrating its first anniversary with a customer appreciation day Friday. Meet Mike and Trish Vieira, tour the farm, see the milk bottling operation in action and enjoy milk and cookies at the farm between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Spokane's Family Farm, Mike Vieira, Trish Vieira, microdairy, dairy, Future Farmers of America
A&E >  Food

Micro-dairy offers minimally pasteurized milk

“C’mon girls. C’mon,” Mike Vieira calls out his evening invitation to the ladies in black and white at Spokane’s Family Farm. “C’mon,” he repeats, walking into the pasture, “C’mon. Let’s go.” Visitors make the “girls” hesitate slightly, but they eventually oblige and line up behind the barn door for the evening milking. It’s a ritual repeated twice daily at the farm 13 miles west of Spokane where Mike and Trish Vieira bottle up to 2,000 gallons of milk each week. “This is what everyone thinks of when they think of a dairy,” Mike Vieira says. The couple began milking cows a little over a month ago, after spending the winter retrofitting the 100-year-old barn with modern milking and pasteurizing equipment and preparing for the arrival of the Holstein cows. It’s a small operation, with just 30 animals in a state where the average dairy had 480 cows in 2007. Many of the state’s large dairy operations have more than 2,000 animals.

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