Black Mesa Ranch
Snowflake, Arizona, USA
Artisan Cheese
Nubian Goats
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Updated!
6/07: We have revamped our Ranch Workshop Packages!
In addition to our one and three-day cheese making and goat management workshops learn about our free open- house days and lodging accommodations.
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Award Winning Artisan Goat Cheeses
4 Awards 2005 ADGA National Competition
3 Awards 2004 ADGA National Competition
2 Awards 2005 ADGA National Competition
2 Awards 2004 ADGA National Competition
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Click here to read the online version of Kathryn's booklet
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This site last updated:
March 29, 2008
© 2000-2008 Black Mesa Ranch Inc. All Rights Reserved
Arizona Grown!
1/1/01
We made a good holiday of it today, cooked a turkey feast, watched the tournament of roses parade and generally goofed off.
I brought the big generator from the Barn and equalized the solar batteries today, bringing the amperage up to 60.2 amps for 2 hours. This is supposed to stir things in them up and re-distribute the metallic stuff that makes them work. We will be doing the equalization every 3 months as suggested by the solar array installers.
We started planning our gardens and some landscaping today.
1/2/01
K called a vet in Snowflake first thing this morning about Bosco’s cut leg and they said to bring him right in so we did. They gave him a shot of an antibacterial, an anti-inflammatory shot and scheduled him to come back tomorrow at 8 am for sutures. The he and rest of the dogs are getting close to needing their rabies and multi shots so we scheduled them for the same time to make a real outing of it all.
After coming home I did my monthly check of the solar battery bank (all OK, no service required) and tried to start up the RV. It was dead as a doornail so I plugged it into the powerhouse to charge for a while. I then took the big generator up to the well and began filling the water tank. It was down 1/3 plus about 10” and we figured it would take 1.25 hours so we had lunch before going back to check it.
I called the AZ Dept of Water again and actually got through to the person I needed to speak to. She said not to worry about the permit running out, they understood about the property changing hands and wouldn’t slam the door on us as long as we were working through the process with them. She said that they wanted original signatures on their paperwork so we would have to send the Assignation of Water Rights form to one of the sellers of this property to sign, and then send it back to them. That would be the first step, then we could work on the extension of the permit.
I then put a call in to LeRoy Anderson, the seller whose name was on the original AZ Water paperwork and left him a message about the process.
While we were having lunch we noticed the phone company guys out working at the far side of the property. With the binoculars we could see them doing stuff with their big machinery and we could hear them across the valley.
After lunch we went up to the well, did a little work with directing the over-flow drainage from the water tank then shut it all off when the tank was full.
We then took a walk to Woop-Woop, via the big wash to see what the phone crews were up to. We hung out there and watched them work on erecting one of the telephone poles which would bring the underground aerial for the 200’ crossing of the creek. We then walked to the other corner of the property where the big bulldozer-thing was carving a trench in the ground and then laying a large cable in the cut and covering it up, all with one machine. Very impressive. The wind came up and it got pretty chilly so we wandered back to the house.
As we returned the mobile phone rang. It was Anderson. We talked for a while about various property-related things, including the damming permit for the creek. He seemed nice enough and asked if it would help if he called the Water Dept (I said probably not) and seemed willing to sign the documents necessary and get them right back to us.
1/3/01
Big trip into town for us with ALL the dogs. We got to the vets a bit early for our 8am appointments and when they opened we were the first to be seen. They gave Callebaut, Roc and Max their rabies and 5-in-one shots, then gave Bosco shot of something like Prozac to mellow him out for the surgery. We were told to check back after 10 am to see how he was doing.
We had a very small list of things to do in town and found ourselves too early for almost everything we needed to be open. Eventually we got everything done including a very early lunch and headed back to the vet’s getting there about 10:20. Bosco was through with getting the sutures and had gotten another shot of antibacterial and his series of rabies and multi-shots but was fully under the influence of the sedatives he’d been given. Poor thing was totally dopey and completely out of it. He ended up trying to standup, lost control of his bladder (a lot) then fell in the puddle. What a mess. We worked on cleaning him up and sat with him for 15 minutes while they figured out our bill, which we paid then headed straight home. Bosco pretty much just flopped around the rest of the day with occasional attempts to get up before the meds finally started to wear off around 4PM. By 5PM he was 85% his old self, just a little uncoordinated and by 7PM he was feisty and bouncing again. His 7-or-so stitches are supposed to stay in 10 days and our biggest task will be keeping him from fussing with the area too much or nibbling off the sutures too soon by himself.
We worked some more on garden planning today and discussed getting the chicken coop fixed up and ready for a shipment of chicks in the near future.
1/4/01
Bosco did fine last night and the wound looked fine this morning. Today we start him on 10 days of twice-a-day antibiotics. We are also washing out the wound three times a day with peroxide and giving him aspirin.
Most of the Christmas snow is gone now with just a little here and there, primarily on the North side of trees etc. where the sun never hits. The weather was beautiful today with the temp getting near 50 degrees.
I unloaded the 55-gallon drum of gasoline from the truck that we had refilled in town while we were there yesterday then worked with the tractor the rest of the day. I got the rest of the phone line trench filled except for the two places where the Line Splicers have to make their connections. I also worked at the main gates doing some grading so the gates swing better and doing some work on the new 1/2-mile section of road we are developing as an alternate way to get to the houses from the gate without going up around the Barn and water tank.
K worked at the Chicken Coop doing some demo in preparation for fixing it all up. We both continued doing research and planning on the gardens and small livestock. We are thinking of getting some rabbits too if they will be able to use primarily the same facilities as the chickens.
The coop (after a lot of cleaning up!)
A guy from the gas company showed up around lunchtime and fussed with the leaking fitting on the LP tank for a while before admitting that he couldn’t fix it. He called his boss with our mobile phone who, from the sounds of half the conversation, didn’t think it was a big deal. We insisted that they fix it and the boss man said he would be out in the next couple of days to deal with it himself. We are down to about 55% on the tank now.
We called Bea the realtor to see if she had gotten the contract back yet on the adjacent property we are buying and left her a message. Later she called and said that it had not arrived as expected so she had called the seller. He had thought he had sent it but then looked and found it in his car. Now he is over-nighting it to her first thing in the morning. She will try to get the title company to get a start on things tomorrow and will let us know once the contract does arrive so we can get her a new earnest money check to deposit (we no longer have the account the check we originally gave her was drawn on).
1/5/01 Landline phone and Internet service comes to the ranch!
It was a cloudy and cold morning so I went up and got the generator from the Barn and fired it up for a few hours to give the batteries a charge and we hung around the house working on the plans for the Poultry/Rabbit House.
The phone guy showed up about lunchtime. He had already done the splicing he needed to in our trenches and in a very short time he had our real phone service up and running! We made several calls to family then immediately ordered our Internet service. It is very slow, especially by DSL standards (usual connects at 21,600 kbps) but much better than nothing. We pretty much played the rest of the day on the Internet.
1/6/01 Ordered chicks for 2/11/01 delivery.
Rainy and cloudy in the morning so we ran the generator again for a while.
K placed our Murray McMurray order for about 50 chicks and some supplies to be delivered around 2/12/01. We worked more on finalizing the plans for fixing up a place for them and did some research on the net about the subject.
Took a long walk this afternoon after it cleared off. Temperatures were great, above 50. We have begun discussing some very general ideas about damming the big wash for if the permit stuff all works out but we have made no decisions at all yet.
While watching TV tonight a large bat flew into the living room, circled a few times and left. We got up to find him and after a couple of dive-bombs he swooped up into the attic through an opening in the ceiling above the stairway (we think). We were planning on building a set of bat houses for their return in the spring but I guess this one at least never left. Hope he stays comfortable up there for the winter.
1/14/01 Getting caught up again.
We’ve been mostly working on the Chicken and Rabbit House on and off for the last week, as weather has permitted. We’ve had some windy and wet days and a good snow storm blew in a few days ago leaving 2-3 inches in its wake. Mostly the temperatures have been in the mid- to upper- 40’s but the nights have ranged from the mid- teens to above freezing. Most of the snow is gone again now and today, aside from the mud situation, the weather was quite lovely.
The Coop is coming well. The roof is almost done (we ran out of mineral roll roofing and need to pick up another sheet, it is insulated and sheathed inside, and the exterior sheathing is all fixed up. The new steel posts are set for the runs and about half of the support structure for the wire mesh has been welded in place.
Kathryn works on the coop roof
Another major project has been Garden and Orchard planning. It looks like we are going to re-plant the Orchard this year with an assortment of about 18 fruit and nut trees. A lot will depend on how much of the existing irrigation can be made to function. We still don’t even know which valve(s) at the Valve House control that part of the property. We will also be using some of the existing irrigation for the planting of a series of berry bushes and grape vines there. The garden is still very much in the discussion phase. I think we will be working towards a 50’ by 50’ area (about 2500 sq. ft.) with herbs, asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries and a bunch of annuals. We have tentatively chosen a location between the two houses and stuck a few sticks in the mud today to get a feel for the size and placement. We continue to do research on various veggies we might want to plant and have been working with a mail-order supply catalogue, putting together an order.
K made a big trip into Flagstaff Monday1/8 to do some major shopping and brought back a bunch of stuff from Home Depot and Sam’s.
Tuesday 1/9 we got a call that the contract was all signed on the piece of adjacent property directly to the East of the houses which we have been working on buying had been signed. We headed into Showlow to do our signing and were able to not only sign the contract documents but went to the title company and got all the closing documents signed as well. The seller was supposed to have signed everything for closing and sent it back next-day mail the next day but it had not arrived at the title company office by Friday. He is on his way out of the country for a month in the next day or two so we really hope he did everything right and did send it.
1/15/01
Today was pretty nice out. We didn’t do a whole lot but I managed to get the 150-hour maintenance done on the tractor and fill the water tank. It was about 2/3 empty and it took 2 hours to fill.
We also removed Bosco’s 7 stitches from his back leg this afternoon.
1/16/01
We got some flurries overnight and had to run the generator for about 3 hours this morning.
K went into town and did some grocery shopping.
We got some more flurries in the afternoon but they didn’t amount to much.
1/17/01
Snow showers again today and we ended up running the generator for about 3 hours in the morning.
I ordered an Oxygen-Acetylene torch and welding set-up from an Internet company today. It is to be my birthday present from K and will be a fine tool that I’m sure will come in handy more times than I can now imagine.
We got word from the title company that all of the documents had arrived for our purchase of the 40-acre adjacent parcel and that it would close this afternoon. To celebrate we took a nice long walk on and around the property. Toward the end of the walk as we were approaching the house Bosco, (who had been particularly frisky, diving into snow piles and generally making a fool of himself) dove through an opening in a barbed wire fence but miscalculated. We were just a few feet away and heard the twang of the wire and a yelp. We called him to us to check him out and sure enough he had torn a large gash in his chest. Dumb dog. I guess he hasn’t learned anything yet. We took him home and cleaned it up, finding that there were actually 3 lacerations. One was not much more than a scratch not even through all the skin layers. The other 2 were a different story. One, though only 1½ “ long looked pretty deep. The other was nasty. It was wide open, into the muscle with a good-sized flap of skin hanging off. It was going to need stitches for sure. K called the vet in town but nobody was there so she left a message describing the problem and saying that we would be taking him off food and water tonight and would bring him by in the morning.
1/18/01
We took Bosco to the vet first thing and he ended up getting 13 stitches on the outside and a few in the muscle to hold him all together. We took him home right away. They doped him up pretty much and even though he was done by 11 AM he didn’t wake up for several hours and wasn’t able to move around until evening. While he was still knocked out on the table in at the vet’s we asked the vet to see if he could easily get a cactus sticker out of his tongue that had been bothering him. The guy got out his scalpel and went to cut open Bosco’s tongue to get it out. K made him stop and get it out with tweezers. DUH! We continue to be unimpressed with that vet’s office. The vet is 130 years old and while pleasant he’s definitely a little off. His assistant is a complete fruitcake who is constantly bouncing off the walls. K says the lady give her high blood pressure just watching her. They are the only vet office in town but we discuss just having to go farther in order to get decent care for the guys.
1/19/01
Trip into Showlow, taking Bosco with the us. He seems much better today and has been great about not bothering the stitches. He’s on an antibiotic pill twice a day and the pain killer/anti-inflammatory shot the vet gave him yesterday should last another couple of days.
Our trip in was for a variety of stops. We went to the Pepsi distributor and set up an account with them to get supplies for the fountain soda gun system we are planning to install at the house. We picked up a CO2 tank and a box of post-mix syrup.
We went to Wal-Mart and did some shopping.
We stopped at a couple of hardware stores to get some of the materials we though we’d need for the soda gun installation.
We stopped at several different animal clinics, vet offices and hospitals to check them out in anticipation of switching vets from the one in Snowflake. All of the offices seemed nice, organized, clean and all the people we spoke with seemed competent and nice. There was quite a difference in service pricing between several of them. At the last place we stopped we spoke at some length with the receptionist. We told her we were unsatisfied with the vet in Snowflake and she got a funny look then told us that the owner of the practice had just bought out the Snowflake vet! She had just heard today that it was a sure thing. This was very good news to us. So now K and I will just hope that the transition happens quickly, at least before Bosco needs anything new.
We ran the generator a couple of hours in the PM.
1/20/01
Today we installed the soda gun system at the house. We placed the cold plate and gun units in the kitchen and the carbonator, syrup tank, syrup pump, and gauges in the small freezer room directly below and ran a bunch of connecting hoses between them. We tied into the water supply under the kitchen sink with a shut-off. Neither of us had had any experience with this type of system so we didn’t really know what we were doing. To our great delight and surprise it worked first try! There were a couple of minor leaks here and there which we took care of and the next thing we knew it we were sucking our own fountain Pepsis! Unfortunately it tasted pretty nasty. We thing that whereever the system was installed before had bad water quality and some of it had gotten stuck in the carbonator tank. We’ll keep flushing it out and see if it improves.
I called “birthday month” today (a tradition to allow us a whole month to celebrate instead of just a day) and K made me a wonderful German Chocolate Cake.
1/24/01
Nothing much going on over the past few days to report. The weather has been generally cloudy and we ran the generator for a few hours every day. Yesterday we had some light snow waiting for us when we got up but there’s still nothing much on the ground.
The phone guy finally came yesterday and finished waterproofing the cable splices in our trench so I was able to go out with then tractor and fill the rest in. I also did a little more work on the new ½ mile section of road we’re putting in.
Last night, while we were watching TV our resident bat swooped through the living room. We hadn’t seen him for quite a while. He seemed very unsettled and flew around, in and out of the room, for about an hour. We tried opening the door but every time we did he quickly left, obviously not interested. He’s a big sucker too. The dogs were pretty much oblivious to him for the first 30 minutes but eventually noticed and were intrigued. Max and Bosco tried hard to catch him on the fly, jumping, snapping and getting nothing but air. Eventually the bat went back to where ever he came from and everybody settled in again.
Today was lovely. A pleasant mid-40’s temperature and sunny as can be once the morning fog burned off. This afternoon we got to work outside on the Chicken/Rabbit House and made some more good progress. The outside is done with the exception of the frame and wire for the runs. I started on the interior partition wall to separate the rabbits from the chickens and we made plans for locating the feed storage, rabbit nesting boxes, chicken laying boxes, roosts etc. We came up with a cool idea to use one of the many gnarly old cedar tree branches we have laying around for the chicken roost but we’ll have to see how it all works out.
The FedEx driver showed up today with our 4th satellite receiver to replace the one we have that doesn’t program correctly. We’ve had nothing but lemons. The package apparently showed up in Showlow on the 12th but the driver said that the roads were too muddy for her to try and come out! Sure, right, for 12 days un-huh. We (and all our neighbors I’m sure) have been in and out numerous times. This was the same driver who once said that she didn’t want to come out here with the delivery because she was in her little car (her husband had the truck out hunting or something). Today she said that next time she might just call us to see if we could meet her somewhere to get a package. Personally I think she’s just really lazy and doesn’t want to make the trip out.
1/25/01
The weather looks lovely out today but it's still cold. We're just going to hang out in the house until at least 40 degrees then we'll do some more stuff out at the Coop. We are now looking into getting a goat or two mostly for the milk to make cheeses from, but also to have bred for the kid meat. I've been doing a lot of research and they sound perfect for here. If we do it probably won't happen for a while, too many things already in the fire now.
1/26/01
OK we’ve sort of changed our minds about the goats. We think we want them NOW! I sent a couple of emails to goat people I found info on the Net about and one in Flagstaff responded with a great note including info on some of the goats she is interested in selling. Her situation sounds unique in that she has a few nice Nubians (great milkers) she really wants to get rid of for various reasons. We’ll have to do a lot more research and make arrangements, of course, to go see them.
In anticipation of eventually getting some goats we decided that one of the trailers at the Trailer Park might make a suitable habitat. It is either a really big (8x40’) travel trailer or a smallish mobile home. It’s really gross and full of crap (literally and figuratively) but structurally sound. Today we went over to check it out and kind-of got caught up in the possibilities and ended up mucking the whole thing out. We took loads of furniture out and about 12 tractor bucket loads of pure junk to be burned. It still is outrageously disgusting but now we can tell for sure that it might work for goats.
The future Goat House???
The next thing we have to consider is moving the trailer over to where we think we might want a goat house, over near the Chicken/Rabbit House we think. How the heck are we going to do that? Maybe we need to put this project on hold for a little while??
1/27/01
Flurries and some wind. Mostly cloudy today.
We decide not to put the goat house on hold. We have a plan (more or less). We are going to just dig out the trailer wheels and the access to the hitch area from 15 years or more of dirt piling up around them, pump up the flat tires with our air compressor, use the tractor to lift up one end of the trailer at a time to pull out the concrete piers, hitch the trailer to the truck, drop it into 4WD and drive it out of there!
OK it’s a pipe dream but we can dream can’t we?
Actually things go pretty smoothly toward getting the trailer ready to move. The tractor made short work of digging it out and helping remove the piers. K cut off all the plumbing and electric lines going up into the house. Unfortunately our compressor (which is about 20 years old and has been on it’s last legs for a long time) broke about 3/4 way through getting the tires all pumped up but amazingly they all seemed to be holding air!
We were pretty sure that our best-case scenario was not going to work but since the ground was pretty frozen today (and not all soft or mucky) we figured we might as well give it a shot but there were so many things that could go wrong: Were the wheels lock-up from disuse? Was the house part sufficiently secured to the frame so it wouldn’t just fall off? Would the rusty hitch work or break under all that weight? Would the tires pop if we got it rolling at all? We brought the truck over and after a bit of fussing got the trailer settled onto the truck’s hitch. It didn’t really fit on too well and was very heavy on the tongue weight, but we didn’t think we would be going anywhere far to start with anyway.
We were completely prepared for nothing to happen at all but when I put the truck in gear we simply took off! Drove out of there like it was a little U-Haul trailer driving down the highway. We couldn’t believe it. We had wanted to take pictures of the process but we were both so ready for it NOT to work we didn’t bother to have the camera ready. After pulling it out to the road I did stop to let K get some shots, then we slowly and carefully maneuvered down the road.
Hey! It's moving! Off we go!
There had been so many questions about whether it could be moved at all we had only made general plans about what we were going to do if it moved. The location we were going to take it to was about 3/8 of a mile away over the uneven dirt road with 4 sharp turns and a couple of steep dips. We got to the first (and tightest) turn and did our best to maneuver the beast without hitting anything but ended up catching a little piece of one corner on a gate post. Ooops. Gonna have to fix that up a bit. The rest of the slow journey went uneventfully and well. We got to one turn that was just too tight to make so we took down a section of fencing and did a bit of cross-country driving back to the road.
Eventually we approached the location where we wanted the goat House to be parked, made some finally decisions about orientation and placement then just drove it in and parked it. It had been SO easy we couldn’t believe it. Still can’t. We secured it, drove the truck out and began making plans for really making it a home for goats.
K also set up the chick nursery in our guest room today.
1/28/01
Got about ½” of snow overnight.
We took Bosco’s most recent batch of 13 stitches out today. He was a good patient.
Burned trash today, yippee.
1/29/01
Cold and very windy today. At around 5PM with the wind chill it was equivalent to 7 degrees!
We ended up running the generator for several hours today. Called AGAIN to try to get the LPG people to come out and fill the tank.
1/30/01
Kept pretty busy today working on the goat house.
Work on the Goat House
K worked on the tractor trenching to try and find where the water lines ran near the animal compound but with no luck. She made some pretty impressive digs but no joy. As she was working on one section a hydraulic hose on the backhoe broke and gave her an oily hot shower and putting an end to that project. The hose looked just worn out which should be covered under warrantee.
1/31/01
End of month (beginning of month) chores today: Fill the water tank which was down about 2/3. Unfortunately the big generator broke before the pump was able to begin filling. Argggh. Now we’re low on water with no way to fill the tanks, and no back-up power. The generator’s under warrantee but it’s still going to be a big deal to get it somewhere to get it fixed. Made a bunch of warrantee calls and was directed to either Holbrook or Showlow for repairs.
Went to town today and picked up some hay and feed for the goats and chicks and got 55 gallons of gas for the ranch. Of course we don’t have either goats or chicks yet, but we’ll be ready when we get them!