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
(available seasonally)
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:
October 11, 2008
© 2000-2008 Black Mesa Ranch Inc. All Rights Reserved
Arizona Grown!
The windmill at the well
12/1/01:
We bred goat Angel 6+ times with our buck Guajillo. The girl couldn’t get enough and we feel pretty darned confident that she should be settled. If the standing heat continues we will put her in again with him.
Lots of 1st of the month chores today including cleaning out both goat pens, trimming all hooves, CMT tests (all clear), weighing all goats (Trudy= 160#, Angel = 140#, Nutmeg = 105#, Ordoño = 77#, Anise = 70#, Guajillo = 87#, and Choco = 66#). We wormed all the dogs with Safeguard.
We also processed the first 1/3 of the sunflower heads we have been drying, hanging from the rafters on the lower level of the house.
12/2/01:
We got started on prepping the house for this year’s Butter Almond Toffee production. We anticipate making about 200# of toffee plus a gross or so of hand-dipped chocolate truffles for presents (and maybe a little personal consumption if we’re lucky!). We did a major cleaning of the kitchen facilities and sealed the room from the rest of the house by the use of a series of poly sheet doors and got a little start on production by toasting 20 pans of almonds and making 4 flavors of truffle bases (Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Mexican Vanilla, and Bailey’s Irish Cream).
12/3/01:
Toffee production: Made 6 batches (30 sheets) of toffee, roasted a bunch more almonds and chopped about 50# of chocolate for tomorrow’s work.
Because of our complete failure at getting any baby bunnies, despite near heroic efforts, we have decided that we will likely convert our current traditional cage-type rabbit setup to a colony-style rabbitry. Today we discussed several approaches and did some research on the subject.
12/4/01:
Toffee production: The major push today was to get the 30 sheets of toffee we made yesterday all coated with chocolate.
Goat Nutmeg came into a standing heat today and we bred her to buck Guajillo. The timing of the heat was peculiar and not in line with her previously observed heats. It is possible that this was the middle of a heat cycle and she might not “catch”.
The afternoon rain turned to light snow today.
12/5/01:
Very icy this morning. K took a magnificent prat fall on the way out to milk but was not badly injured.
Bosco’s belly wounds, from his most recent encounter with barbed wire, are healing nicely and he has two nice little scabs finally forming.
K boxed all of the toffee we have made over the last couple of days and we made a 7th batch of toffee to, hopefully, complete the rest of the orders.
Made feta cheese
Feta cheese
12/6/01:
Toffee: chocolated and boxed 7th batch of toffee today.
Made a batch of feta cheese today but it was a total flop.
We re-bred goat Nutmeg to Guajillo today and she stood pretty well.
Today we converted all of the rabbit housing to a “colony-style” set-up. We set up 5 of their nest boxes in remote sections of the chicken house, filled them with straw and put protective brambles of entwined tree branches around them for protection from the chickens. We also took 2 hay bales and cut tunnels through them to allow access to 2 of the boxes that we put in a special section of the “Red Room” storage section of the coop. One by one we released the rabbits from their cages into the new set-up and they seemed to take to it immediately, finding the various tunnels and hiding places easily.
Upon close examination of one of the Satin does “Chesney” we found that she has developed some very sore rear hocks. We think that this change in habitat will be very good for her feet (nice straw to run around on instead of a wire cage bottom) but she is a bit lethargic today and we worry that she is too sick to get better on her own.
12/7/01:
When K went to do the AM milking this morning she found little goat Anise out of their pen. After the scare of thinking that she had been locked out all night K realized that she had forgotten to close the gate at all last night.
The rabbits seem very happy in their new situation today. There are signs of a bit of squabbling (some fur has been pulled out) but they seem to have calmed down nicely. A couple of them seem friendlier then they had ever been in the cages.
Colony rabbits
Went to town to feed store (picked up a new pair of NZ rabbit does to add to the warren), PO, McD’s for lunch, the Vets (dog medicine), Bank (tried to add Toffee business to account and deposit some toffee checks), Grocery and ALCO (hair dryer to thaw the goat barn heater when it freezes next time) and the auto parts place (new battery for the well generator).
In talking with our neighbor who works at the feed store, we learned for the first time of a group of tough guy neighbors in the valley who act as a sort of vigilante posse. Apparently there have been some recent disputes with a new property owner who has said he intends to block a section of the dirt road that goes through his land. The only other way to the properties on the other side is much longer and generally impassable in anything but the best weather. Our neighbor told us that the group had just visited the man and after showing up fully armed with weapons drawn, had a “conversation” with him and had “persuaded” him to re consider his position.
On the way home from town we passed a very old man running a road grader on a section of the dirt road. After passing him and driving on the part he had finished K remarked that she had always wonder how the washboarding got so bad on the road from time to time and now she had actually seen the man and machine responsible for doing the job.
Called Sears to fix a broken handle on our fridge (under warrantee).
Replaced the well generator’s battery and filled the water tank.
12/8/01:
We fitted little wether goat Ordoño with a soft pack for the first time today and took him out with it on for our morning walk with the rest of the gang. The pack is actually a dual-pannier set-up we had purchased many years ago for dog Roc to wear on some of our hikes, before he got too fragile to carry a load. Ordoño handled it well, without any fussing or problems. As a matter of fact he acted like he thought he was really something special.
We decided to spend the bulk of this year’s toffee profits on expanding our power system’s battery bank. We will be adding a 4th string of 8 batteries.
We also began to discuss adding apiaculture (bee-keeping) to our growing list of ranch hobbies and started doing some research on the subject.
Made a kick-butt jalapeno chutney. Mmmmmmmmmmm good!
12/9/01:
Opened the orchard irrigation drains (oops, probably should have done that a month ago!)
Brought over a new barrel of wheat from the barn for the goats. Dumped the end of the dry lima beans in the garden (moldy).
Went to visit neighbors Linda and Eddie and to return the rabbit cage we had borrowed from the feed store to them.
12/10/01:
Got an LPG (propane) delivery today.
Went to town today: Solar energy place (pick up new batteries), Mexican lunch, Bank, PO, Pharmacy (sent a package UPS), vets (Roc’s Rimadyl).
Installed the new battery string as light snow showers came across the valley.
Installing new batteries
12/11/01:
Big snow storm today! The snow flurries that had moved in yesterday afternoon decided to stick around overnight. By 7AM there was only 2” on the ground but it then started to accumulate quickly. By the time it had quit around 5PM a foot or so had stuck. The sun came out for a short while and it was just gorgeous. Took a walk with the goats and it was fun to watch them wade through it and make trails.
Snowy bush
We weighed the goats again today and they were all the same as on the 1st of the month.
Dogs and Goats in the snow
We are expecting a friend up to visit from Tucson tomorrow so we did a little house cleaning etc.
12/12/01:
Using the tractor’s bucket I plowed our ¾ mile driveway and about ½ of a mile of the county road past there.
Plowing the ranch road
Martha arrived from Tucson at about 12:30PM and after a nice walk, we all (even the goats!) worked on building her first snowman ever.
The goats "help" with a snowman
12/13/01:
COLD! Near record temperatures with 16 BELOW zero degrees F. recorded here. The main supply pipe to the goat barn was frozen solid, as was the yard hydrant near the chicken coop.
We made batch #8 of toffee.
We spent the afternoon building an insulated box for the goat house water supply pipe. Martha made a video of the process with her new pro-quality camera. During the process Martha thought she saw goat Angel eat a nail so K tried to quickly reach into her mouth to find it. She came away with a couple of nicely lacerated fingers for her trouble but no nail. We think it was probably a false alarm.
We all did a blind milk tasting today and concluded that Trudy’s milk is much heavier, more creamy while Angel’s milk is lighter but sweeter tasting.
12/14/01:
Cold again, -7°F but the water main to the goat barn was fine. Guess the insulated box worked.
We chocolated and boxed batch #8 of toffee. This should be our last batch this season. The most bazaar thing happened while working with the chocolate. In my hurry I accidentally put a big bowl of it in the microwave to melt in a METAL BOWL! The really weird thing is that it melted just fine without damaging the bowl or microwave! I just don’t understand why it worked.
Since Martha had never had the opportunity to do much driving in snow D took her out (in her Trooper) to do some 4-wheel driving around the area. She learned a lot about “over correcting” in steering and had a pretty good time. Dogs Bosco and Max who followed ended up having to ride in the car for the most extreme parts and looked a bit green upon our return home.
12/15/01:
Got a nice dusting of snow overnight and periodic light snow throughout the day.
More snow!
Got a call from a neighbor we had not met that she was holding a package from UPS for us at her house. It was a long story how she got it. Because of the snow the driver knew that he couldn’t make it out here. He also knew that there was an agent at a real estate office in town who lived near here so he left it with her to get to us. The real estate lady remembered us from when we had flagged her down on the road while looking for our lost dog nearly a year ago. She had kept the business card for the ranch we had given her which had a map to our place on the back. She looked at the map and realized that she knew another woman who lived even closer to us than she did so she gave this other woman the package. That woman was the woman on the phone. She did indeed live close so we all (with Martha in her car) drove over for the box. Bosco, who loves to ride in a car refused to even get near Martha’s this time. We guessed he had had enough yesterday with the 4-wheeling adventure. The people were very nice and we visited with them for a while before heading back home.
Separated cream from milk, made mozzarella and coffee ice cream.
Little wether goat Ordoño got his head stuck in the buck pen fencing again and had to be rescued. His horns are just long enough to catch on the wire when he tries to back away. We have discussed several ways of trying to prevent this from happening but have not decided the best way yet.S
Worked on the milk room ramp, adding more wood strips to make it easier to use in wet and icy conditions.
12/16/01:
Our friend Martha departed for her return to Tucson today. She took with her a big car-load of toffee for delivery to people down there. We packed all of the remaining orders for shipping.
I re-did the milk room ramp with even tighter spacing. It is very easy to use now.
We worked on a section of the buck’s pen fencing, wiring it so Ordoño can’t get his head through the spaces. We only did the places he was most likely to try but we will eventually have to do something around the whole perimeter.
12/17/01:
I broke the PVC sink in the milk room this morning. I had been dumping out the chunks of ice from the goats’ water buckets when a particularly big one hit the bottom of the sink HARD. It’s just a crack but I don’t think it can be fixed. For now we’ll just stick a bucket under it. When the weather warms and we’re looking for a moderately big project we’ll see if we can replace it with a similar laundry sink from the North house.
Went to town today: PO (to mail all remaining toffee orders (including several to Canada and even one to Belgium!), Bank, Lunch, Grocery, and to distribute some holiday presents.
At home we cleaned out the rabbit hutches (all no longer in use now), removed the shade canvas from over them.
Today we first notice an odd bald spot near the corner of dog Bosco’s mouth/jaw.
12/18/01:
Several weeks ago we had made arrangements to buy a pygmy goat to butcher for meat. Today we scheduled a time to go over tomorrow. We got our little mobile abattoir ready to go, started making the extra ice we thought we’d need, sharpened knives etc.
Also worked on adding a bunch of pictures to the ranch web page.
12/19/01:
Today was our first goat butchering day. We went to the neighbors as scheduled but the goat had gotten out with the rest of their herd and was running around out on the range somewhere. After a while they found him but were unable to catch him so they herded the whole bunch back to the pens where he was easier to grab. They walked him down their dirt road a ways and I followed in the truck (with all our tools). The idea was that they would be able to show us the best way to kill, clean and dress the carcass. Unfortunately the woman and her 2 daughters were apparently not the ones who usually did the butchering. I had brought a large caliber revolver and since there was no better suggestion I took the goat to the side of the road and quickly dispatched him with a single shot to the back of the head. I then sliced his throat deeply and held up the rear quarters to allow the body to drain out as much as possible. We spread a large piece of cardboard on the tail gate of the truck and began to skin him. The work went quickly, aided by the use of my razor-sharp tools. The women showed me how they got the innards out and after a minor mishap with the bladder everything went fine. Soon it was just meat to be worked on. Once broken down a little we iced it down in our big “crypt” cooler and were on our way in less than an hour from the time we had arrived. At home I was able to further break it down and get a few roast, some stewing meat, some ribs to smoke, ground meat, liver and heart, the tenderloins and some cutlets. All told, the 48# live-weight pygmy goat yielded a 21# dressed carcass. After boning etc, there wasn’t much meat. We had the tenderloins sautéed for dinner and found them to be tasty but VERY tough.
12/20/01:
The Sears repair man was scheduled to come fix the fridge door today. Instead, he called and said that he needed to order a part.
Filled the water tank at the well.
We got some information today that the son of a friend of ours in Tucson needed to find a home for a purebred German Shepherd and we discussed whether he would work out here. We think it would be a great addition to our gang.
D did some woodworking out at the barn on a year-old project of a knick-knack cabinet and worked on a book writing project (KC) all evening.
12/21/01:
K began drying off goat Trudy’s milking today by starting to milk in the morning only.
Smoked the goat ribs today along with some chicken parts. We had the ribs for dinner and they were pretty good. Also made mozarrella, peppermint ice cream, & whey bread.
Layered nice thick straw over most of the perennials in the vegetable garden.
Worked on writing in KC book.
12/22/01:
It looks like we will probably be getting “Ford” the PB German Shepherd from our friend’s son. We still have to work out all of the details but it looks like it will be in March of 2002.
D did more wood working out at the barn and K worked on taking down a long section of barbed wire fencing.
12/23/01:
Made cookies, & goat meat spaghetti sauce, lemon marmalade.
Got some more info on Ford. He seems like a great dog and will do well here.
Did a major computer back-up.
Got an evening dusting of snow.
12/24/01:
Woke up to a 1” accumulation of snow on the ground. Today was the last milking of Trudy for the season.
Made eggnog and have noticed that our milk and cream are tasting different. Drying Trudy off, less overall volume, longer time to process, and seasonal changes might all account for the differences.
We think that one or more of the rabbits might be nest building.
12/25/01:
Tried to start the LPG generator this AM but the battery acted dead. Had to jump start it with the truck.
Made a sourdough coffee cake from a starter from our neighbors Linda and Eddie. It was pretty good, but a lot of work to keep going by the directions.
Celebrated Christmas with present opening and a meal of duck and wild rice with all the trimmings.
Noticed 5 or so range cows on the property but pretty far off.
12/26/01:
Had some kind of generator malfunction this AM. Had to jump start it but the inverter then shut off all power to the house, giving an overload error. After resetting everything we couldn’t get the problem to duplicate.
Got more info about Ford. It looks very likely that it will all work out with getting him. We are very excited!
We noticed 5 range cows hanging around the ranch, getting ever closer to our homestead area. Eventually they came right up near the houses and over by the goat house. They were not at all afraid of people or dogs and they scared all our goats badly. K shooed them off.
We both worked on taking down more barbed wire fence sections.
Filled the water tank at the well, burned trash.
Worked some more at the power house and found that the generator was having trouble keeping up with 60 hertz output so I lowered the inverters draw to only 35 amps. We are trying to get the good local solar guy to come out to dinner with his wife so we can quiz him about some things on our system and to do a quick once-over of everything.
12/27/01:
Had to jump-start the LPG generator again this morning.
Worked most of the day on removing more unnecessary barbed wire fencing on the property.
K reported that goat buck Guajillo is not eating as much as usual.
12/28/01:
Went to town: Feed store, groceries, NAPA (battery for LPG generator checked out OK), Lunch, Bank, PO, truck & ranch gasoline.
When I had removed the battery this AM in order to bring it in to be tested I noticed that one of the connections was not as tight as it should have been. The tech at NAPA had had to clean off a terminal to get proper contact for the test. Between these two things we have high hopes that after re-installing it, it will now work and charge properly.
12/29/01:
Made mozzarella and butter.
Little goat Anise is in heat today.
Still having problems with irregular output from the LPG generator. It is sending erratic amps and hertz to the inverter.
12/30/01:
Today we started rabbit Chesney on ½ cc Biomycin 200 in hopes of helping her deal with her abscessed feet. We also lanced and drained a large quantity of very thick white pus from both front feet.
We did some target shooting at the dump, K with her .22 and me with my .177 pellet gun.
12/31/01:
Gave rabbit Chesney ½ cc Biomycin 200 injection. Wormed dogs for 3rd time. Got a dusting of snow during the day.
We have been again noticing a very different flavor to our milk (which is all Angel’s now)
Gurney’s Nurserys basically told me “tough luck” in trying to get credit from them for some of their plants which died this season. They have been sold in a bankruptcy sale and the new owners are not backing any previous sales. I wrote them a very scathing letter in return.
This is our second New Years Eve here and we were again struck by the complete absence of the random gun fire we had come to expect and dread when we were in Tucson.