Black Mesa Ranch
Snowflake, Arizona, USA
Artisan Cheese
Nubian Goats
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Cheese and
Candy Information and Online Ordering Page
Featured pages on this site
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!
Sunday, September 01, 2002
Trimmed all hooves and weighed everybody. Pickled 1 quart jalapenos and did a 1 gallon salt cured mixed pepper batch. WWW.domain web site move to Khimaria completed.
Trudy out browsing
Monday, September 02, 2002
Candied a couple dozen jalapenos. Big garden and orchard watering. Filled water tank. More work trying to get FTP/web page stuff to work. Made Vanilla Ice Cream.
Tuesday, September 03, 2002
Equalized batteries. Smoked a pork butt, 2 packages of chicken thighs, a rabbit. UPS brought NECS package. New liquid rennet, chèvre culture, and tab rennet. Played around with TV/stereo set-up - "It's a JUNGLE back there".
Is all this really necessary?
Wednesday, September 04, 2002
Made dog biscuits, mozzarella (new liquid rennet): came out same; soft – not stretchy, crème caramel. “Bob” in Phoenix called looking for 2 packing wethers (Bajo and Cayenne??) to buy. He saw our web site and was impressed. Worked on learning FTP upload stuff for the web site - making progress. Installed Office 2000 upgrade/service pack and it is helping with program crashes. K’s back bad today. Nutmeg’s foot is better.
Thursday, September 05, 2002
To Showlow: PO, Wal-Mart, (K hair cut, shopping) Pepsi, Chinese lunch and home. New crate for Kira. Flea/Tick oiled dogs. Big package of geneology stuff form CFH. AZ dairy inspector will come out Saturday 9/7 at 8AM to look over our place for possible dairy certification. “Bob” form Phoenix will come up Sunday 9/8 to look at Bojo and Cayenne. Work on Goat 101 pamphlet. Genealogy work until 4 AM. Pen G shot to Cayenne.
Goats in the HOUSE? (almost) Never!
Friday, September 06, 2002
Made 48 dog B’s. PenG shot to Cayenne. Cleaned house a bit. Angel with Guajillo (first time). Work on setting up email forwarding. Work on Goat pamphlet.
Saturday, September 07, 2002
Overnight rain. AZ dairy inspector Dan arrived 7:30 AM and looked over the possible dairy site and buildings. He was encouraging. Oh boy.
Sunday, September 08, 2002
More overnight rain. New fence at wash OK. Rain on and off all day. We got one inch. Web page work. Made pepper jack and jalapenos in syrup. Ordono out with herd. New grading working well. Wormed all goats except Cayenne. Chilly!
Cayenne tries out the packing rig
Monday, September 09, 2002
More overnight rain – over half an inch. Pond half full. K worked on buying LPG wall furnaces. Anise in with Guajillo: Good job. Very cool – mid 50’s overnight. Cloudy, all day. Web page works. Wormed girls – withheld milk. Big afternoon rain. Pond full and overflowing. All grading held well. Very low cloud banks brought waves of rain with intermittent sun streaks! Very pretty. Made Jalapeno Ganache – Good!!
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
More rain overnight. Fences across wash mostly held. One post at north end pulled out but fence was held by others. Good series of tests. Web page work. More rain all day. Another 1 – 2 inches in all!!
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Walked wash: both fence crossing wiped out. We may be able to pull the sections out with tractor and repair them. To Town: PO, (new PO box #1656, pick up package), McD’s for lunch and meet UPS driver Todd with 4 packages! Little more rain, but made it back OK (wash still running a bit). Web page work, K made lotion and filled 52 gel caps with copper for goat boluses. Tried bolusing: Not so good. Read more info on how to do it. Got Anise, Bajo, Cayenne. Our new buck at Claudia’s (Munchkin X Kasbah) might have been conceived.
Thursday, September 12, 2002
Tractor work: Pulled fence parts out of wash debris, ready for re-fencing washes. Repaired road at wash, road work, pond work. Anise in with Guajillo. Harvesting in garden. Last broc plant to goats. Genealogy work. Ate last chicken wings. UPS brought another B-day box for K.
Friday, September 13, 2002
Bred Angel (about a dozen times) successfully. Fixed fences at wash crossings. Made 2 gallon chèvre, dog biscuits, milk chocolate cake.
Sampling an early Blue Cheese
Saturday, September 14, 2002
Butchered 6 rabbits. Fry fry day: 2 rabbits, 2 gal zucchini, O rings. Harvested last corn: Excellent! Canned 2 quarts tomatoes. Genealogy.
Sunday, September 15, 2002
Copper bolused big boys and all girls except Anise. Wormer shot Cayenne. Poblano followed Bosco for cornstalks. Got 1st muskmelon from garden: small, great flavor, not too sweet. Rotisseried rabbits, Wormed dogs – safeguard #1.
Monday, September 16, 2002
K’s birthday! Presents: Lots of soap making and packaging stuff. German Chocolate cake, pecan sweet rolls, stead and shrimp with corn, garlic-cream potatoes, grilled zucchini.
Kathryn's birthday!
Bred Anise – good prospects. Wormed dogs – safeguard #2
New LPG heater arrived UPS.
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
To Showlow: PO, Coke, Wal-Mart, Feed store, Mex lunch, hardware store, bank, solar store, new feed store. Safeguard wormed all dogs #3. Watered cane fruit, filled water tank.
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
Good rains today 1” + Pond full to overflowing. Wash running big. Garden grading held great, will have to check on fencing at wash crossings tomorrow. K made 1st liquid soap.
Thursday, September 19, 2002
Separated cream, made Ricotta and dog B’s. Tried drying tomatoes and red jalapenos in oven with Big Jims.
drying tomatoes and red jalapenos
K worked scraping and durabonding. Orchard work: clean up and weeding. Lots of tractor blading and K did mucho hand chopping weeds around can fruits. Beautiful weather!
Friday, September 20, 2002
Wormed all the goats except Anise and Angel. Harvested toms, peppers, and zucchini. Tractor 10 hour. Tractor work on roads. More weeding and brush clearing in orchard.
Weed clearing at the Orchard
Gorgeous day today. Ran the tractor out of fuel (Oops!!). Full moon tonight.
Saturday, September 21, 2002
D worked all day in orchard: Brush clearing and piling. K tractored piles to compost. K worked on money figures for dairy costs. No phone in PM: goats had pulled the wired out of the interface box. Cayennes’s cough 98% gone. Fixed goatZbo (falling apart).
Sunday, September 22, 2002
Cayennes last BioMycin shot. Goofed off. Made Dog B’s, dried chilis,
A pan of doggie biscuits ("dog b's")
K made 1st shampoo: weird, all foam!
Monday, September 23, 2002
Lots of internet dairy research. K finished durabonding Living Room beam, and area, Linen closet, etc.
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
Discovered a single baby rabbit about 4 weeks old. Don’t know where the rest of the litter is or who the mother is. Probios to all goats, Rewelded DCH office chair. Downloaded windows XP Serivce Pack 1 and installed. It took over FOUR hours!! Took lots of flower pictures.
Wild flowers
Made ricotta cheesecake. Nutmeg in heat. Angel very fussy on milk stand. D did first joint compound skim coats on Living Room walls.
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
Tatoo’d 4 rabbits P1, P2, P3, P4(the gray eared one). GasX to Angel in AM. Baby bunny looks female. Installed south window blinds and repaired Kitchen blinds. Demo’s chimney and chaseway, refloored and sheetrocked around it. Kira brought home a coyote skin – one or two days old. Angel still fussy on milk stand. Watered cane fruits and filled water tank ¾.
Thursday, September 26, 2002
To town: PO, Feed store, McD’s for lunch, truck gas. Picked up pallets at Precision. Tried to fix networking problem: worked around but not fix. K winterized pipes at well. Garden harvest: toms, ripe peppers and chiles.
Garden harvesting
Friday, September 27, 2002
Kitchen day: Chile Colorado (shredded), Black Mesa (Forest) cake, bread, mozzarella (came out grainy).
Saturday, September 28, 2002
Cheese and dairy research and planning. Evening garden harvest. Played with a bunch of pumpkins making jack-o-lanterns
Jack-o-lanterns a-plenty!
Sunday, September 29, 2002
Cheese dairy research day. Looked at north house again. K did dairy plans. WINDY!!
Monday, September 30, 2002
Overnight low 46. Made 2 gallon chevre, dog B’s. K changed bank mailing addresses, registered for CCW renewal classes. Made bread. Watered cane fruits and orchard. Filled water tank to 7/8 full. Weeded at orchard. K took down barb wire east fence, south of orchard to corner. Made first L’avec, small batch -good!
Windy.