OKEANA, Ohio – Tim Mullen took over the family farm at age 14 when his dad died. He married Amy and they had four daughters. That was the end of the line for the dairy farm, he thought. But then third daughter, Emily, decided she loved dairying. Emily now oversees the dairy and recently opened The Mullen Dairy and Creamery.

“A girl getting into the dairy industry isn’t always the easiest thing,” Emily Mullen said.

The creamery has whole and flavored milks such as cookies and cream, banana, root beer, cotton candy and more. Mullen believes there is a market for different things, especially coming from a local producer. She continues to offer the cow’s milk soaps and lotions she and her mom began making in 2018, intending to build a following for the creamery she hoped would follow.

She will soon be offering drinkable yogurt and she is working to develop cheese curd recipes. Ice cream is down the road.

“I don’t do everything myself; this is a group effort. But I oversee every aspect of the operation,” she said. “I am very prominent on the livestock side of things.”

Mullen started down this path in high school. By her sophomore year, she knew she wanted to do something different on the farm.

“I realized that if I didn’t come back to the farm it wasn’t going to exist anymore,” she said. “My dad’s health was starting to decline. I have three sisters and I love them all dearly but the farm is not for them, and that’s fine. I had this burden of responsibility that if I didn’t do it nobody else was going to. I struggled with it for a while. I didn’t want to do it because I felt like I had to. I had to do it because I loved it.”

Throughout her high school career, Mullen was active in the Talawanda-Butler Tech FFA chapter. She valued the learning opportunities that came through her “amazing agricultural educators,” Mike Derringer, Sara Casto and Kari Roberts.

‘Those educators took me under their wing and showed me things I had never seen before, and opportunities that I didn’t know existed for someone in agriculture,” Mullen said. “It was a huge impact on my life.”

She was on the fence about going to college and was unwilling to take out student loans. Then she learned about a scholarship that the Douglas family offers each year for a student to attend the dairy program at The Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI).

On that scholarship, Mullen majored in dairy production and management. Elected state treasurer, she was heavily involved with FFA while attending classes and driving four hours most weekends to come home and help on the farm. Next, to graduate with an associate’s degree, a student must serve an internship.

“Fortunately God looked out for me again.,” Mullen said. “I had just gotten a phone call my dad was going in for emergency open-heart surgery. I was scheduled to do a Green Hands Ceremony speech at an FFA high school chapter that night. I told myself that my dad would be upset if I canceled going to the speech, that I needed to fulfill what I had promised to do.”

At that presentation, she learned about a possible internship at a creamery. That got the wheels spinning which enabled Mullen to spend the summer between her freshman and sophomore years of college at the Bakers Golden Dairy in New Waterford, Ohio.

It also caused Mullen to take a step back and consider what she was doing opening a creamery. It is a large time commitment and meant an extra set of inspections; dairy as well as creamery.

“You’re told that going in, but until you are hands-on you don’t fully understand what you are putting yourself through,” Mullins said. “I am selling a product directly to consumers, unlike when you’re a part of a coop and you have some protection. If there is an issue they’re coming directly back to my farm because I was the one that processed that milk.”

Now on the farm full time, Mullins gets up at 2:30 in the morning to milk and is finished in time for breakfast by 5:30. Then she can chill out until 7:00 before taking care of the cattle.

They grow everything they need on the 276-acre farm. A cousin, Scott Taylor, helps with mechanical work. Tim Mullen takes more of a lead with the crops but they talk over all decisions.

“I couldn’t do it without him and he couldn’t do it without me,” Mullen said.

By 2:30 it’s time to milk cows again. That takes about an hour in the double-six herringbone. She still must feed the cows, clean up the parlor and make sure things are sanitized properly.

In the evening Mullen tends to the soap and lotion business. She checks orders, and bottles and pasteurizes the creamery milk.

As a young female Mullins has lots of options for help through USDA with low-interest rates and some grants available. With that help, she hopes to have robots installed on the farm in three to five years.

And her sisters have come back to help. They want their kids to be active on the farm. Mandy McQueen helps her mom help with soap and lotion. Another sister, Amber Blaine, helps in the creamery. The youngest, Elizabeth Mullen, helps with computer issues.

The creamery milk is offered at Schwab’s Farm Market and other local businesses. Mullen drums up business through word of mouth and social media.

“I am very prominent on Facebook,” she said. “I probably make one or two posts a week for soap and the creamery. Word of mouth is also a big deal. I’m low key and may be slower in building a consumer base but I also know that I am bringing in customers who know the quality of my milk.”

For information, visit The Mullen Dairy & Creamery on Facebook.