You’ll be driving down a country road and from out of nowhere a simple hand-lettered sign may say, “Cheese Curds Today” and point toward what looks for all the world like nothing more than a whitewashed barn.

Do stop in, because it’s possibly one of a dying breed — a farm-run cheese operation. Yet don’t fret — while more and more gleaming copper-kettle high-tech operations are taking over, Wisconsin’s countryside is still home to many, many dozens of smaller operations, many of which have been in operation since the mid-19th century. And most of these offer viewing platforms/observation windows, if not outright tours. (And once in a while, they’ll let you pick up an implement to help churn!) All, naturally, will have retail shops!

The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board (www.wisdairy.com) has an endless list of diminutive cheese operations where you can poke your head in for a visit. If I were to choose one place to go, it’d be Monroe, south of Madison, home to a number of operations. South but still closer to Madison in Monticello you can find a couple of classic operations.

Most typical of new operations is tiny Bleu Mont Dairy, in Blue Mounds, west of Madison, where all the cheese is organic and made from all-chemical free raw milk, and where all power comes from the sun, wind, and cow!