“I don’t do this to get rich — obviously,” Jose de Leon said.

But two years in, Monte Verde Farm and Creamery is near to breaking even financially, de Leon said.

There have been a lot of upfront investments in equipment and infrastructure, as well as a lot of learning. Raising and milking goats and making and selling cheese require broad skill sets and trial and error.

Dressed in a black chef’s jacket and standing beside a heated cauldron pasteurizing 45 gallons of goat’s milk, de Leon said on a recent Monday that demand is growing. And he and wife and business partner Katie Sciarine are planning an expansion next year. They want to increase their goat herd from 20 to 50 and add on to the creamery building. They also want to start making butter from their small herd of dairy cattle.

Monte Verde is one of 15 goat dairies operating in Virginia, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. And its line of cheeses are available at independent food stores in Blacksburg and Floyd, as well as the downtown Roanoke and Blacksburg farmers markets on Saturdays.

The business started three years ago with a casual purchase offer on 70 acres in Floyd County, Sciarine said. The seller accepted, and suddenly, the dream moved closer to reality.

The couple prepared to leave Chicago, where they met in 2008. De Leon retired as a federal environmental attorney, and Sciarine traded her teaching job in Chicago for one in Montgomery County.

De Leon trained in cheesemaking in Vermont, and Sciarine plans to take classes there this winter, she said.

De Leon, 65, said he was deeply influenced by the year he spent as a child in the Spanish farm country after his family fled the Cuban Revolution. There he watched his aunt make cheese from the dairy cows to sell at market. And the family made bacon and other traditional cured meats, he said.

He brought that old world farming philosophy to Monte Verde — or Green Mount in Spanish.

“You can tell the goats that were born here,” de Leon said. “I don’t dehorn goats. The only way they have to normalize their temperature is their horns.”

An Illinois native, Sciarine, 60, was reared by entrepreneur parents, who owned their own business.

“And I always wanted to own my own business,” she said.

In December, Sciarine retired from teaching to work full time in the dairy operation. They have a farm hand, Jesus Sabater, who looks after the livestock and a friend, Amy Nichols, who helps out with preparing for and staffing the Saturday markets.

But they do most of the work themselves, from daily milking, to salting the fresh cheese before it goes into the aging room.

Currently, Monte Verde sells blooming rind goat cheeses similar to brie that are aged for about a week and two flavors of fresh chevre. They also produce bacon and sausage from their herd of 30 Mangalitza pigs.

Mangalitza are an old world breed of pigs indigenous to Hungary. They are distinguished by their wooly coats and sheep-like appearance. The piglets have striking white stripes. The breed nearly went extinct in the 1990s, but de Leon said it is today prized by chefs for its rich flavor.

In addition to market sales, Monte Verde cheeses are available from Harvest Moon Food Store in Floyd and Eats Natural Foods and Vintage Cellar, both in Blacksburg.