I made the last cheese of my professional career yesterday. It was a nearly perfect cheesemaking day; I began at 6 am sanitizing equipment and the milk line, began the transfer of the fresh milk from the bulk tank, and was joined by Melinda who prepared the buckets of frozen milk to add to the […]
Dang me! It has been a rough week for our boy, Pistol. As a matter of fact, it’s been a bit of a bumpy life, but he is coming out a winner. Unlike his namesake in the ’60’s country song, “Dang Me,” Pistol was not the seventh son, but the single son of 2072, a
Baserri with its First Place ribbon at the Festival of Cheese at the American Cheese Society Conference in Des Moines, Iowa. Thanks to Seana Doughty for taking the photo!
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Woo hooo! Our Baserri won First Place in its category at the American Cheese Society competition today! They even pronounced BOTH “Baserri” and “Barinaga Ranch” correctly at the award ceremony! Congratulations especially to Taryn Orlemann, who made cheese for me last season, including this lot! And to Lisa, Aline, Caroline and Melinda all of whom
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Bebe is one extraordinary ewe, and one of my all-time favorites. Her name (BB) stands for Bottle Baby, because she was rejected by her mother (who we named Psycho, because of her complete lack of mothering skills) and we had to raise her on a bottle. I originally decided not to keep Bebe, because poor
I’ve been feeling pretty stir-crazy since I broke my ankle two weeks ago, missing my time working with Lolo, Lisa, Melinda and the sheep. Today I hobbled out to my back yard on my crutches and just sat down there with the pets. Gracie and her lamb Frankie were happy for the company. And their
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Melinda got this cute photo of the pigs the other day enjoying a salad of garden trimmings. This triggered her to look back through her photos and find a photo of the pigs not long after they arrived in May. That’s a lot of growth in two months! But as Lolo is fond of saying, “Well,
Barely a week after we lost Big Otis, another sad milestone: We lost Bugeyes on July 4, at 8 1/2 years old. Bugeyes was the first lamb born on our ranch, in March of 2008, to Edie, the ewe who wound up being the model for our label and logo. Bugeyes got her name because
Bugeyes (March 20, 2008 – July 4, 2016) Read More »
Yesterday was a sad day–we lost Big Otis, our oldest livestock protection dog. Otis had been with us for 9 years–he arrived to protect our very first lambs in 2007, and on day one, at 6 months old, he headed out into that pasture of lambs, checked the perimeter fence, found the highest spot where
Big Otis (January 2007 – June 2016) Read More »