THE sign at the entrance to Suzanne and Stan Sankow's farm, named Beaver Brook for the creek that runs through the property in Lyme on its way to the nearby Connecticut River, is a quaint portrait of a black-faced sheep. The farm makes and sells, among other products, artisanal sheep and cow's milk cheeses [...]

BEAVER BROOK FARM in Lyme, Conn., has been in the Sankow family since 1917, but it wasn't until 1984 that Stan and Suzanne Sankow introduced sheep to their 175 acres. They broke into the cheese business in an unconventional way with ''half a flock,'' as Mrs. Sankow put it: a ram bought for her [...]