(l-r) Buffy, Blanca, Rodney, and “Number 6” pose for the camera. Photo by Shannon Zahnle
BY NANCY HILLER
Meet Buffy, Ginger, Nilla, Sassy, Blanca, and Bella.
Judging by their names, the girls in this list might be characters in a reality television show. But these particular flaxen-tressed lovelies have cloven hooves, and they like nothing better than to submerse themselves shoulder-high in a muddy pond.
They are water buffalo—six of the nineteen at Loesch Farm, the latest venture of longtime business partners Jeff Mease and Lennie Busch. Acquiring a herd of water buffalo with a plan to manufacture mozzarella cheese is not your everyday business move in the uplands of south-central Indiana. But Mease and Busch see the animals as an adventurous outgrowth of their more conventional undertakings—Lennie’s Restaurant, Pizza X, Bloomington Brewing Company, and One World Catering & Events, all of them organized under the umbrella of One World Enterprises.
