Black Mesa Ranch
Snowflake, Arizona, USA
Artisan Cheese
Nubian Goats
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Candy Information and Online Ordering Page
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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!
Kira
Friday, December 03, 2004
mostly sunny, cold
Chocolate work all day: chocolated 3 dz each of 6 truffle flavors, made several rubbles and toffee. K sorted chocolate from nuts, peeled peppermint candy and boxed like a demon. We’re in good shape for the weeks’ orders. Discovered all 3 ducks had been killed overnight. All were in the buck pen (but not inside the trailer) torn up a little but not eaten. No way to read the tracks around - K surmises an owl attack possible. Ravens were on the scene early but as scavengers or killers?
Saturday, December 04, 2004
cold, cloudy, flurries
Open house today 10-3, 3 sets of visitors, ~$70 in sales.
Put bags of fresh cheese in fridge to deal with tomorrow.
Shannon & co. arrived to pick-up buck Visa. Stayed, chatted for a while before heading out.
Worked on horse run-in: got rest of beams in place, rafters cut and installed and ceiling joists tacked in.
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Morning milking time. "Aren't you guys ready YET?"
awoke to a dusitng of snow. 40’s mostly sunny, breezes Dairy work all day: separated 14 gallons of milk for cream, made boule with skim milk, rolled 200 fresh logs, did a lot of order taking and processing, wrapped cheeses of shipping tomorrow.
Monday, December 06, 2004
mostly sunny, cool
Basha’s want more/different/amended insurance stuff from us before we can be vendors for Eddies. Noting new for us, just documentation. K sent it to Haslette for him to deal with.
Entered many orders in database including Esther’s whose big list came in the mail today.
D to town - pick up chocolate at Amelia’s, shipping at PO, Grocery & pizza @ Basha’s, p/up milk jugs @ Sunrise (48 gallon jugs with lids for $15.00), truck gas. Picked up lots of Pioneer and Silver Creek Herald papers ‘cause the dairy was prominently featured in articles in both.,
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
mostly cloudy, breezes, cool
Did candy work all day. Spent the AM organizing orders and making work lists. D chocolated truffles & toffee, made rubbles, etc, K boxed and wrapped product.
Took 6 more Local harvest orders and a couple of others as well. Major holiday ship day is just 6 days away and we have 2 open house days and a trip to Flagstaff between now and then as well.
Call from the county health dept. They finally decided that they want to come out and see the place, after all. Probably sometime in the next couple of weeks. ‘Bout time. Bred Migonette this AM. Mace seems to be in heat again too.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
sunny and nice - 50*
K made up lots of gift basket, chopped chocolate etc and got ready for tomorrow’s open house. We have tons of orders which need shipping Monday but I don’t see how we are going to have time to get them all together with people traipsing all over the ranch most of Friday and Saturday. Gonna be some long nights working, I think.
K says Cassia has a bit of pneumonia - treated with antibiotics and will keep a close eye on her.
D to Flagstaff to deliver to CSA. Brought along a bunch of cheese to sell but sold out in less than an hour! AND I got to come home early!
Friday, December 10, 2004
mostly sunny, warmer (50), breezes
Got up early to get ready for dairy open house today 10-3. Not tons of people but mostly serious buyers. Took in a couple of hundred dollars, mostly in cheese sales.
Unloaded truck from Flagstaff trip.
Used tractor to bury a dead coyote the dogs were playing with. Kira “almost” had it buried on her own – K, while directing me to the place said “Just look for the little pile of dirt with the teeth sticking out” - which was a pretty good description.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
sunny, warm and gorgeous
Big open house day today 10am to 3pm. Had lots of people including a 4-H group from the Verde Valley area. Did about $350 in sales and kept really hopping. Once everybody left we worked for several hours on prepping cheese and candy for some of the dozens of orders shipping out this Monday and Tuesday.
Cassia still not feeling well, gave another shot of biomycin, PM temp 103*F
Sunday, December 12, 2004
sunny, warm
Big production and packaging day in preparation for major shipping days tomorrow & Tuesday.
Bred Annie again. Cassia still not 100%, K wormed her. Corey slight temp @+103
Thursday, December 16, 2004
partly sunny, cool, breezes, a few flurries
Cleaned and organized kitchen more in post-rush mode, also getting ready for open houses this weekend.
Still getting orders in for Xmas delivery (hopefully) will do last chance holiday shipping on Monday 12/20.
Major house cleaning for upcoming guests.
Friday, December 17, 2004
sunny, 40’s
Open house 10-3. Pretty busy, made $200+.
Still getting Christmas orders: phone, email and Local Harvest. Dipped another 12 dz truffles, chocolated more toffee and made some more rubbles, and I’m not getting ahead yet.
Had a customer write that a spread she bought was moldy and another that a Boule didn’t taste good (looked fine). We’re very puzzled and can’t find any indications of problems with other ones of either type.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
sunny, 50’s after overnight 22*F
Last open house of the season. Good turn out, $175 in sales, lots of happy people. Boxed candy orders for shipping after last people left.
M&G arrived from Tucson around 7:30 PM.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
sunny, 50
Made Feta. Probably the last full cheese batch of the year.
Rolled some cheese logs and got ready for another big packaging and shipping day tomorrow.
Eddie & Linda came over and, with Glenda and Martha’s help we were able to lift the #@^%$*@# non-functional convection oven up onto the forklift blades and remove it through the dairy window. I’ll be returning it to the seller in Phoenix when I go down in a couple of days. K and Linda got to talk horses for a while.
Monday, December 20, 2004
sunny, near 50
Spent the morning wrapping, packing and shipping the last big chunk of pre-holiday orders. 35 more parcels went out today. Got our first returned package today it was returned for a bad address (zip code) which in checking we found that the customer had given us incorrectly. We are not sure how we will handle such problems as policy when they arise.
Got up with the intention of jumping right in for an early start on getting the final shipping push before Christmas ready to go. When K went to feed the horses they weren’t hanging out by the feeding area like usual - they were out a ways AND she only saw Li’l and Sandy. No sign of Smokey. I got the truck and headed out to look but she had spotted him on the wrong side of the fence at the far west side of the property, more than ½ mile away. We headed out there in the truck but he was too wound up to notice our attempts to get his attention as he ran the fence line. I dropped K off as close to him as I could and headed back around and out our gate to try and get to him that way. I drove the perimeter and saw no sign of him before coming to Kathryn, who had also lost sight of him, last heading in my direction. We drove around a bit before K thought she saw him back with the other 2 horses again, waaaay back by the buildings on our property. We went back and, sure enough, there he was looking for his breakfast - sweaty as can be, but in otherwise apparently perfect shape. We found no broken sections of fence and are still not sure how he so easily went back and forth. We assume he jumped a lower section, but will follow up and make improvements if possible.
We, with M&G went to town for lunch @ Eva’s then D to Show Low for various shopping, including new tires for the truck, a replacement tire for the one that exploded on the trailer, feed store, etc.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
snow showers overnight, foggy very early, cool and sunny all day, cold night
D to the valley: 2 cheese deliveries, returned convection oven, paper supply place, Sam’s, p/up 3 ton Estrella. Left at 5am, back by 6 PM – just a “short day” (ugh)
Thursday, December 23, 2004
cold, high around 32*F, sunny with breezes
Orders still coming in but no chance to get them filled or sent in time for Christmas. Oh well.
Rolled the last of the fresh cheese logs of the year. After today’s orders there are 24 logs left in the world (until spring).
Got an order for 5 gallons milk and some people coming out to tour tomorrow
Took a few bags of estrella off the trailer to the feed room until I get a chance to unload the rest, hopefully tomorrow.
D to town: PO, Bank, feed store, Amelia’s, truck gas,
Friday, December 24, 2004
sunny but cold, 8*F this AM, high today around freezing with breezes
Had 2 groups visit, one for a tour, one just to pick up 5 gallons of pet milk. Didn’t have much left for them to sample, let alone buy.
Stil have Holiday orders coming in and will have to do some candy making this weekend to fill them.
Worked on outline and started script for “Getting started with goats - the movie”.- a video Martha will be putting together with us this spring. Quiet Christmas eve. Watched some TV, ate a little dinner and that was about it.
Monday, December 27, 2004
D to PO in town to do shipping.
Beth & Caleb arrived late afternoon for an overnight visit.
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
mostly cloudy, 50
Started (to my surprise) an almost full batch of fresh cheese.
A customer called who had gotten her candy order around Christmas and had really liked it. Turned out she was a food writer and she wanted to do a story on us for her regular monthly column ““For Chocolate Lovers Only” with StarChefs.com for February 1st. We are planning on gearing up for some serious Valentines day promotions on Local harvest so we said “Sure, go for it.”. Eeek! I hope we’re not biting off more than we can chew!
Beth & Kaleb left around 4:30 with Anise (after a bit of trouble getting their car to start). Anise looked pretty cool, calm and comfortable riding in the rear section of the Jeep Cherokee.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
partly cloudy, breezes, 50*F
Worked most of the day on re-writes of the video script for “Getting Started (the right way) with Goats”.
Unbagged fresh cheese, mixed and refrigerated it.
Did some preliminary lay-out to see if I’m heading in the right direction with the greenhouse plans. Decided I wasn’t and pretty much started from scratch again. At this point I think I am set on its size (12x16) and that I’ll be using polycarbonate for the glazing and CMU for the bulk of the foundation an low walls. It will be located along the south wall of the new goat barn.
Friday, December 31, 2004
mostly sunny, breezy, mid-50’s
Worked on horse run-in most of the day. Finished the joists, rafters and cords, trimmed joists, installed the ouelins and got the metal roofin on! We were a bit short on the roofing (all slavaged) so we’ll just wait for the next roofing project and order a bit extra then, if necessary). Only missed covering a few square feet of the 12x24’ building so the horses won’t even notice.
Happy New Year!