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!
9/1/01:
Did some work in the Orchard today weeding around the small fruits, transplanting a couple of grapes, rototilling and irrigating everything. Also filled the water tank at the well. Did a major fry-fry project and deep fried several gallons of zucchini for the freezer. Made a 4- gallon Gouda cheese. Harvested the first strawberries, just two of them, from our new plants. They were the best tasting berries we’ve ever had. Can hardly wait for more!
Played with the "new" cream separator a bit.
Ready to make separate off some cream
9/2/01:
Drying sunflower heads
Harvested over 110 sunflower heads, almost all we had in the garden and strung them up in the unfinished room on the lower level to begin drying. Once done we’ll either de-seed the heads for goat treats or maybe give them the whole things to work on. One of the heads was over 16” diameter! Did some gardening including harvesting 6 acorn squash. Made bread and some cookies.
9/3/01:
Did the framing for the Buck House walls and roof.
Framing Buckhall
We wormed and lice powdered the buck Guajillo and wether Choco. Nutmeg, Ordoño and Anise who are all still showing signs of pretty nasty colds got a dose of VetRx 3 times today. Neighbors Linda & Eddie came over in the evening to meet the buck Guajillo and look at the garden.
9/4/01:
A Kitchen day. Made a 4-gallon Gouda cheese, a Sour Cream-Ginger Pound Cake, a White Chocolate Mousse Cake, & Vanilla Ice Cream. VetRx’d Nutmeg, Ordoño & Anise 3 times today for their colds.
9/5/01:
Very windy today. Did the sheathing (3/8 OSB) on the Buck house. Last VetRx for the 3 kids today for their colds.
9/6/01:
Again, very windy. Called a “wind day” and didn’t do any work. Went to town: glass store, Hardware, lunch, Gasoline. At one point our indoor Trimeteric meter registered that the batteries were at a 53.6 volt charge thanks to the wind. That was the highest reading we can remember without the generator running.
9/7/01:
Roofed the Buck Hall building today using salvaged (but unused) metal panels from the storage yard. Pulled 130 Walla Walla onions up in the garden to begin drying. Filled the water tank at the well today. Rabbit Lucy was removed from the buck’s cage and Reba put in for breeding.
9/8/01:
Equalized the batteries today. While the generator was running we smoked a batch of pork ribs. Ummmmm good!
Did some Orchard work including weeding all the tree wells, mowing and irrigating. Burned trash.
Made a 4-gallon Gouda cheese. Made butter from our separated goat cream for the first time. It was different and kind-of weird seeing pure white butter (looked a bit like lard) but it tasted so good I’m sure we’ll get used to it quickly. The 1 gallon of cream yielded 1 ½ lbs of butter.
One of the laying chickens, “BS” is sick today. She is very weak and not eating or drinking. K brought her into the house, set her up in a large cage we had for the dogs and tried to make her comfortable. She also tried to get her to drink various liquids without much success.
9/9/01:
COLD last night. Got down to 44°F overnight. First time below 50 for the low this fall. Moved 3 bales of hay from the barn to the doe goats store room. Worked on the web page. “BS”, the sick chicken, died. We noticed several Praying Mantises in and around the house today.
9/10/01:
We buried the dead chicken “BS” in the new Cemetery near the Orchard. Worked on building the doors for Buck Hall. K cleaned goat pens. Web page work.
Today was the first “open range” day for the 4 doe goats plus Ordoño. Unfortunately it only lasted an hour before they figured out how to get into the fenced Cotoneasters so we had to put them back in the paddock until we work on the fencing. Rabbit sage not eating well for the last couple of days.
9/11/01:
Went to town: Bank, solar place, lunch, grocery and feed store where we learned of the despicable terrorist attacks on NYC and DC. Put off doing anything important around the ranch since we were feeling somewhat in shock and not thinking clearly. Re-fenced the Cotoneasters against the goats. Made a 4-gallon Gouda cheese.
9/12/01:
Goat buck Guajillo and companion wether Choco ended their arrival quarantine today. Not that it worked that well anyway since all the goats caught Guajillo’s cold. Worked all day on Buck Hall doors and making the hardware for them.
9/13/01:
A cooking day. Made a 4-gallon Mozzarella, Ricotta cheese, an Angel food cake for K’s B-day (which literally flopped terribly for my first try from scratch at this high altitude), French Vanilla bean Ice Cream, churned butter, and made bread. Got a good afternoon rain which “rivered us in” as the big wash ran very high and fast for a while.
9/14/01:
Painted Buck Hall today. Used the airless sprayer to quickly apply the dark green paint we’ve picked for our main building color for the ranch. It went so fast that we decided to paint the LPG generator shed and the two small buildings up at the well while we had the spray rig set up. Worked the rest of the day on making hardware for the Buck hall doors and hanging the BuckLand Gate. Filled the water tank at the well today.
9/15/01:
Finished BuckLand hardware. Moved out the horse trailer (the guy’s temporary shelter) from their paddock, removed the temporary fencing, installed the rest of the permanent fencing, and let them have the run of their full area for the first time. They seem to really like it. Today we have passed 200 gallons of milk collected from the herd (just Trudy and Angel) since we started.
9/16/01:
A series of thunder storms moved across the valley over the course of the day which gave us a bit over 6/10th of an inch of rain and “rivered us in” as the big wash ran well for a good long time. Just after milking time took the new boys along with Ordoño for their first walk with us. We went a little over a mile, out to our gate and back, and they did just fine. Took rabbit Reba out of the buck’s cage and put Chesney in to breed. Happy birthday to Kathryn. We had a great meal of Chicken Picata and fettuccini , with home grown veggies and homemade bread (and, of course, the chicken was home grown also.)
9/17/01:
Went to town: Feed store and lunch. Fried up 3 gallons of zucchini for the freezer. Dried several batches of herbs. Made Mozzarella but it came out extremely tough this time. Very peculiar.
9/18/01:
Worked on BuckLand & Doe’s House fixtures: hay racks, grain stand, mineral bins, etc. Wormed goats Trudy, Angel, Nutmeg, Ordoño & Anise with SafeGuard. Did a 10-hour maintenance on the tractor.
Topping out Buckhall
9/19/01:
Finished BuckLand fixtures and worked on Buck hall windows.
We found the rooster has been damaged by the hens picking on him. His tail has been pretty much pulled out and they have drawn blood from his back. We moved him to the kid-pen section of the newly built Buck Hall. We had planned on this area being used as a possible sick animal and recovery area but had not thought it would be used so soon or be used for a chicken. When we checked on the rooster “TopKnot” in the evening we found that he had flown up to the top of the adjacent chicken coop to perch. We caught him and clipped his wings, that seems to be keeping him grounded for now.
9/20/01:
Made Mozzarella today and it came out quite tough again. Don’t know why but a guess is that the cream separator is getting far more cream out of the milk than I ever did by hand and maybe that has something to do with it. Churned butter and dried herbs today too.
9/21/01:
Did a general clean-up of the main compound area today. Moved the horse trailer over to the Orchard for permanent parking. Worked on the little used LPG refrigerator we recently acquired: cleaning, general repairs, prepping for installation and moved it down to the lower level of the house. We plan to install it under the stairs if possible but have a small list of parts we need first. It will be used to age and store cheeses once we get the thermostat adjusted.
9/22/01:
Irrigated the Orchard today. Worked on the little mower, replacing a wheel and sharpening the blade. Filled the water tank at the well today. Took a nice long walk with all the boy goats this morning.
9/23/01:
Took a few guns to the dump for some target practice (K is very good with her .22 rifle) and cleaned all of them later in the afternoon.
9/24/01:
Made Mozzarella which came out better than the last two. Still kind-of dry but not too bad. Pickled 1 qt of red jalapenos. Made Chicken Molè and baked some cookies. Waxed 2 Gouda cheeses.
9/25/01:
Picked a couple of rhubarb stalks today (the first!) and stewed them up. Excellent! Finally got solar stuff ordered (again)(hopefully) for the new array we’re adding. First day for the doe goats and Ordoño to roam freely around the place, nearly half of a month after we first tried it. We kept running into problems with them getting into things but we really think we’ve got it all covered now. We’ll see.
9/26/01:
Worked most of the day on garden planning for 2002!
9/27/01:
Trip into Showlow: PO, Hardware store, Pepsi, Welding supplies, Plumbing supply, saw sharpener, Lunch, Gas & Diesel stations for 55 gal drums, Wal-Mart, & Feed store. We took Bosco with us and he did the strangest thing.. when we drove into the supply yard at the plumbing supply place to pick up a big piece of pipe to use for the base of our new solar array, he jumped out of the truck window while we were loading! He NEVER leaves the truck without permission. He immediately ran over to a pile of pipes and culverts and we figured that he must have REALLY had to go to the bathroom. K hung out with him while I finished loading but all he did was run around the yard. We were mystified until we remembered that he had caught a couple of rabbits back at the ranch last week by getting them out of some large PVC pipe we have stored at our supply depot. Sure enough, we watched him and all he was doing was running from pipe to pipe sniffing for signs of another victim. Poor little guy, the place was so big he only got a small fraction of the pipes checked out before we had to go. Bet he’ll be eager to go back there! Did some tractor work on our roads and San Carlos Rd from our gates to Hay Hollow Draw and rebuilt the crossing at the wash. K’s microscope arrived. She will be learning to do the fecal exams for all the beasties which will save us a bunch of bucks and let us give our animals more responsive treatments. Saw a large column of smoke to the south from a forest or brush fire.
9/28/01:
The valley was filled with smoke this morning from the fire to the south. The smoke column was clearly visible all day. Cooking Day. Made Romano (Grate Goat), Ricotta (Rigoata), Black Forrest cake, churned butter, Vanilla Ice Cream, and Chicken Picata. I had a problem with all my milk and cream products and they turned out very poorly or not at all. After some investigating I found that I had gotten a yeast contamination somewhere along the line. The Romano turned out like a big sponge after pressing. It actually oozed out all around the mold like over-risen bread dough. Very strange. One of the laying hens “Buffy” has been very broody so K marked and left her with 3 eggs to see if she’s serious.
9/29/01:
Taking a break in the shade
Took a good hike around, up and over part of the Black Mesa with the 4 littlest goats and the dogs this morning. We looped around to the North and put in about 3 tough miles which was more than enough for Choco who’s not yet used to such exercise. Burned a big brush pile at the Orchard (all the dead trees that we pulled out last spring) and a pile of junk from the “Trailer Park”(from cleaning out the trailer that we pulled over to become the goat barn last January). Irrigated the Orchard and filled the water tank at the well.
9/30/01:
Re-worked and tended the burn piles from yesterday.
Did some gardening. Pulled some onions to dry and discovered that some creature, probably a pack rat, is stealing jalapenos right off the plants and making a pile of them around the main irrigation valve for the garden. I collected all the good ones and set a trap baited with… you guessed it… a hot pepper.
Storage onions