Black Mesa Ranch
Snowflake, Arizona, USA
Artisan Cheese
Nubian Goats
Cheese and Candy Information and Online Ordering Page
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Updated!
We have revamped our Ranch Workshop Packages!
In addition to our 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
2 Awards 2008 ADGA National Competition
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:
July 19, 2010
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Endorsed by more than 36 humane organizations, the Certified Humane Raised and Handled® program is nationally recognized as the Gold Standard for certifying animal welfare.
Arizona Grown!
11/1/01:
We trimmed all of the hoof of all of the goats today and weigh-taped them: Trudy=160#, Angel=145#, Nutmeg=100#, Ordoño=65#, Anise=63#, Choco=53#. Both of the milkers were CMT tested and checked out mastitis free. We cleaned out the goat pens, removing the debris to the garden for winter composting. The girls started a new hay bale this morning.
Rabbit Lucy went in with the borrowed Cal Buck this AM.
The guy from Sears was out to fix the icemaker on our refrigerator. He did not inspire confidence at all but after puttering around for a while said that it must be a bad water switch because he couldn’t find anything else. He had to order the part which would take up to a week to come in.
11/2/01:
The boys started a new hay bale this AM.
Bosco has gotten into something that is making him quite sick. He vomited 4 times, has bad stools and terrible gas (even for a dog). I will watch him closely and make sure it’s not something more serious than a bad tummy upset.
After she milked the girls for the last time before her trip, I took K into town to catch the shuttle bus to Phoenix for her flight to KS (actually she’s flying into Arkansas then driving up to KC with her folks) for her family’s reunion. We had to scrape ice off the truck for the first time this year before starting out. The van picked her up at the Napa Auto Parts store in Snowflake which is a lot better than having to drive to Show Low like we thought we would have to. She will stay at a hotel tonight in order to make her early AM flight out.
The rest of the day I spent working with the tractor on our road in and got a good start on digging a small pond near the goats house which we will try to use to catch some of the tremendous rain run-off from the mesa when the storms hit up there.
Tonight was my first solo milking of the girls. Things went OK. 1 down 7 more to go.
11/3/01:
I milked the girls and they (and I, I guess) did OK. I think they miss K a lot already. Nutmeg is in free-flowing heat. She is the wettest creature in heat I’ve ever seen. Her whole back end gets soggy.
On our usual morning walk, all the goats acted quite strange. They were all extra frisky and even though I was walking pretty briskly they tore ahead of me almost the whole way to the gate. I think they thought that maybe K was ahead of us somewhere and were trying to catch up. The way back from the gate was more subdued though they were still rambunctious enough.
I got out the tractor again and worked some more on the pond. I also brought over a non-functional refrigerator from the North house and planted it on it’s back in the ground to within a couple of inches of the doors. We are planning on using it for a root cellar next year but wanted to see what kind of insulation from the elements it gave before committing a bunch of produce to it. We will track the inside temperatures of the “root cellar” for a while and if all seems OK we’ll throw some potatoes or something in there to see how they fare.
Moved the solar panels to the winter position (almost vertical) and completed the regular 1st of month chores including battery and generator maintenance projects.
11/4/01:
Goof-off day I spent it drawing and painting. Got a couple of 12x20 acrylic paintings done and I’m pretty pleased with them. The day was cloudy and calm and I expect to have to run the LP generator tomorrow if the weather doesn’t cooperate better.
Ranch paintings
The original subjects
The girls have decided that they REALLY want K back and have begun giving me a hard time at milking. I think I’m teaching them some new and bad habits but it’s all I can do to keep them still long enough to get (most of) the milk out of them. My hands are definitely going to fall off.
11/5/01:
It was cloudy with rain showers today.
Worked again on the pond, doing some grading work.
I prepped the big flat-bed trailer for the trip to Phoenix in a couple of days by pumping up the tires, checking everything over and getting all the bungees, ropes and tarps set to go. 3 of the 4 tires were as flat as could be (as I had been expecting) but historically the leaks are so slow that it takes nearly a week for them to deflate. I’ll double check them the night before leaving just to make sure though.
I gave the tractor a 10-hour maintenance (270 hours) and moved our remaining few bales of hay around in the Barn in order to make room for bringing in the big load from the valley.
I finally got the weather-proof receptacle installed on the outside of the South house. We’ve been using just a regular one (though on a GFCI) and had bought the WP one several weeks ago. K had been threatening to give it a name if I didn’t get it out of the house and installed soon.
Did some phone calls and it looks like I’ve, at long last, gotten all of the info necessary to get a reimbursement for a tire-protection insurance policy on the RV which we sold months ago. I faxed the last of the documents to the insurance department where we bought the vehicle and they said that they would be sending a check soon.
Trudy kicked over the milk bucket at almost the end of her milking this morning.
11/6/01:
Got the flat bed trailer all hooked up and ready to go to Phoenix tomorrow early AM. The tires are staying up fine and there will be no problem in getting there and back without trouble from them. All the goats had to investigate the new toy and help greatly in ly preparations.
Made mozzarella cheese and got my supply order ready for toffee making.
The girls have gotten worse and worse about my milking them. I really don’t think I’m doing anything wrong, they’re just being real pains in the neck. I’m resorting to cajoling, bribery and threats to get through each encounter. I fear that K will have some serious re-training to do upon her return.
Afternoon showers yielding .1” of rain. The weather forecast for tomorrow is iffy for a hay run but either way I’ll go down with picking some up in mind and see how it goes.
11/7/01:
Big trip to Phoenix today to pick up K from her trip and to do some shopping. After getting up quite early and getting the morning milking and chores done I was out of here with Bosco and the trailer in tow at 6:20 AM. I saw the coolest thing at about 5:15 AM on my way out to milk. I happened to be looking up at the stars in the northern sky when I saw a flash. It was a long, sustained pulse of a flash, not quick at all. I was looking directly at it when it happened. It pulsed big and bright over the course of maybe a second then over 2-3 seconds faded away to nothing. I watched for quite a while longer but there was no other light. I am convinced that it was something in the very far distance, not like a plane or satellite, perhaps a star exploding light years away (and in the distant past to us). Very neat but probably no way to really find out what it was.
The trip down was uneventful and I had planned out an efficient route to allow me to swing by our favorite sausage maker in the world who’s shop is in the big city and stock up on their Hungarian, Polish and dried sausages and pick up a couple of sandwiches for our lunches later . I then headed over to a hotel near the airport where we had scheduled our rendezvous. A short wait which allowed me to take Bosco for a quick walk and give him some breakfast and soon the hotel’s airport shuttle arrived with KATHRYN!!! I had brought her ranch hat along and had asked the shuttle driver to give it to her at the airport which she did, giving her a jump-start on feeling back home. K later commented that the hat looked like somebody had slept with it, it was so rumpled. Uhmmmmm…?? We were both very glad to see her and she was pretty darned glad to be home.
We next went to a Sam’s Club and did some major grocery and other shopping after eating our sausage sandwiches in the truck. We then headed out to the hay place to the west of the city in Liberty. They did indeed have some alfalfa and it looked fine so we loaded up 44 bales onto the trailer (about 2.25 tons). It seemed kind of dusty but was nice and green. Most of the bales were on the heavy side if anything (some were hugely heavy) and just a few underweight. We sure hope the goaties like this stuff ‘cause they’ve now got a lot to eat.
We then headed home. The traffic was better than we’d thought possible getting through the city. It’s almost always bad and today was the celebration and parade downtown for the World Series winning AZ Diamondbacks just at the time we were heading through.
We arrived home at about 6:45 from a very full and successful day. We pulled the trailer through into the barn and just parked it there. We’ll unload it someday in the future. K got a record evening milking from the girls tonight, a combination of it being a long day between milkings, having somebody who knows what they’re doing and , the goats being glad to have her back.
11/8/01:
A beautifully sunny day with a nice breeze so power was abundant.
We unpacked the truck from all our shopping in the valley yesterday.
The Sears repairman was back again to work on the ice maker for our fridge. He had brought the replacement valve part and it installed pretty quickly. He said there was no way to test it except letting it cycle for a few times to see if all was well and that he couldn’t just wait around. He said he “forced” water into the freeze tray to get it started and if there was a further problem we’d just have to call again. The guy is really odd and was very elusive about what he’d actually done. We have suspected that he has never had a clue about what was wrong with it to start with and the whole act of getting and installing the part was something of a diversion. As it turned out we may have been right as the icemaker never did fill again after the first little cubes dumped. We’ll give it until tomorrow and call them again.
K gave me a good haircut and a beard trim.
K says that the girls are being a royal pain with her in the milk room. I had warned her that they had been giving me grief for the last few days but we both just assumed it was me. I’m sure I’ve done something to encourage them to be so weird but K says she’ll whip them into shape again in no time. The clue, she says, is that if they’re only fussy once they run out of grain then it just them being pains, while if they fuss while there’s still plenty for them to eat it’s probably something the milker is doing (pulling too hard, spraying a foot with milk, a fly bothering them, etc.). This makes me feel better because they always waited until they finished their grain before fussing with me.
11/9/01:
Filled the water tank today but the starter battery on the big portable generator up there was dead and had to be jump started from the truck. Apparently the last time I filled the tank the generator had run out of fuel instead of being shut down normally. The key was still in the “run” position the whole time so I’m hoping that was what ran the battery down and there won’t be a further problem.
Dog Roc’s abscess is puffy and ugly again today with weird oily gunk in the pores after having been looking much better for the last few. We’ll resume treatment.
The goat packing supplies arrived today. The saddle, pannier set and a book, all in good shape and looking like they’ll work really well (once Ordoño grows a bunch!).
You gotta grow some first, buddy!
The icemaker still isn’t working so we call again for service. Our 1-year warrantee is about to expire and we are concerned about getting this fixed before it does. We told the customer service rep that we didn’t want the same service man out this time and they agreed. We are considering buying the extended warrantee for the fridge since even a single service call a year (without doing any work or buying any parts) way out here will more than pay for the contract.
11/10/01:
Took a nice walk up and around “Bobcat Ridge” with all 7 goats (just minus the buck Guajillo) and the 4 dogs.
Made soft goat cheese and butter today and babied a big pot of sausage, chicken, and crawfish gumbo all day.
Fresh goat cheese
Kathryn’s folks have given her a very generous check for a Christmas present and we have tentatively decided to use it to build the nice deck we have been discussing for out back. Today we started making some plan sketches of different ideas that might suit our needs.
All of the new rabbits (even the borrowed one) are now able to use their nipple waterers (actually Bogie is using a roller ball-type for now) so we don’t have to give them little bowls anymore.
11/11/01:
I drew and painted a couple of 12x20” acrylic paintings today and made plans for this years candy sales and production.
Drawin'
K worked out at the goat barns cleaning. Guajillo’s leg is much better now, healed from his nasty scrape and we can stop treatment on it. When we first found the problem it looked about silver dollar sized but after cleaning it up and after all the dead skin had had a chance to slough off we saw it was much bigger, maybe 3 or 4 “ long. At any rate, it’s fine now.. We never did find what in his pen he might have gotten snagged on.
11/12/01:
We worked for several hours on the rabbit cages, replacing all the floors with some new 1/2x1” heavy gauge wire we had purchased from a cage supplier expressly for that purpose. The old bottoms were 1/2x1/2 hardware cloth and we have learned that some of the problems or rabbits have experienced with their feet could be the result of the hardware cloth.
In moving all the rabbits around to work on the cages we found that Sage has a large abscess on one of her front feet. It is quite swollen and misshapen. We did some quick research and have now lanced it (got a tremendous amount of incredibly thick white material out of it) and have begun soaking the foot in a gentle hot water and bleach solution, then applying a topical antibiotic twice daily. She’s eating and drinking, though less than normal.
Worked more on toffee production planning and flyer design and printing.
11/13/01:
Sage’s foot looks a bit better with the swelling down some. We soaked and applied antibiotic twice today.
We printed the rest of the toffee flyers, printed mailing labels and got everything ready to take to the PO.
Made sugar cookies.
11/14/01:
Sage is not doing so well today. Her foot looks about the same but she is not eating or drinking. Further research has told us that in most cases abscesses in rabbits must be treated very aggressively with broad spectrum antibiotic injections and surgery for any chance of success. These are not options for us so we will have to keep a close eye on her and see if she will respond to our efforts.
We went into town for our Thanksgiving grocery shopping and went to the PO (mailed the toffee flyers) and to lunch at the Mexican restaurant. We actually got 2 big (22 lb+) turkeys since they were at such good prices. Not the smartest thing we’ve done considering our current freezer space crunch. Between all the stuff we picked up in he valley, the toffee supplies now in the freezers and the extra turkey there isn’t room for frost in there now.
Made Feta cheese this afternoon.
11/15/01:
A different Sears repairman came out to work on the ice maker. In about 2 minutes he determined that the problem was that the water line had an ice block. We couldn’t believe that the other guy had been out here twice, had said he checked for that, and hadn’t been able to find or fix the problem. All the new guy did was open a quick connector on the back of the fridge and try to blow through it. I had specifically asked the other guy if he couldn’t try that and he had said “Those connectors are too tricky to mess with, they break all the time. I have never been able to open one up without breaking it and I don’t have any replacements on the truck.” The new repairman showed me how to work the quick connector (simple as can be, just a sliding retaining ring to move down) and said that the only way to remove the ice block was to defrost the whole freezer, check it by blowing through the hose than fire it all back up. He was nice and sympathetic about our having to have dealt with the other guy. I think he’s heard similar tales about him from other customers many times in the past. He left and we transferred all the contents to an ice chest (our 2 chest freezers are full to the max after the trip to the valley) then defrosted the unit as directed. Soon the ice block was melted (I had no trouble opening and re-closing the quick connector several times) and we were in business again. The machine is cranking ice just fine now with no further problems. My question is this: How did that first repairman “force” water into the icemaker at all of the line has been frozen all along? My guess is that he just poured some in with a cup or something so he could rack up another service call and be on his way.
I did some more tractor work on the new pond, deepening and widening it some more. It’s probably not done but we’re going to leave it until after the first couple of big rains of next summer and see how it works.
Rabbit Sage seems about the same. We continue to soak and put topical antibiotic on her foot but she’s still not eating or drinking.
I changed the oil in the LP generator today and went up to the well to fill the water tank. Also brought the last 5 old bales of alfalfa over to the girls’ barn.
11/16/01:
Rabbit Sage is doing much worse today. Apparently the infection has spread and both her rear hocks are now abscessed. She is not eating or drinking still and is in obvious pain. We decide to put her down and bury her in the cemetery . We then worked at disinfecting her cage and equipment and disposing of her sitting boards and toys.
Still no signs of coming into heat from Trudy so we’re saying that she must have gotten pregnant her last real time in with the buck 10/4/01. We’ll keep an eye on her but are now expecting babies from her around March 4th of 2002.
11/17/01:
Took a hike with all the goats (except Guajillo) and all the dogs up and around part of “Calamity Hill” and back. Bosco got a small barbed wire snag on his chest that could take a stitch or two but which we will work on keeping clean and apply a topical antibiotic and see how it heals.
Made lots of holiday cookies today.
11/18/01:
Did a small acrylic painting today.
K worked at the goat houses cleaning and also cleaned around the front yard and made piles of tumbleweeds to burn.
She also gave Choco a much needed bath. Living, even part time with Guajillo and his less-than-clean personal hygiene habits gets poor little Choco pretty mucky over time. He’s so soft and fluffy when he’s clean that we try to wash him once a week or so, weather permitting. Today was a bit brisk so we let him into the house for a little while to dry off.
11/19/01:
We went to town today stopping at the PO, and the grocery store and grabbing a quick fast-food lunch out. Dog Max’s new present, a “Gentle Leader” training halter and some art supplies arrived for me at the PO.
We discussed the timing of getting that pigmy wether from the neighbors we had visited a while ago. It should be pretty close to ready but we have absolutely no room in the freezer. I left a message for the neighbor to give us a call about it.
11/20/01:
Gave deceased rabbit Sage’s cage a final cleaning and disinfecting then moved some of the other rabbits around, separating the new California does (Bacall and Hepburn) for the first time. Hepburn’s face seems a bit roughed up so the timing is probably pretty good. The new Cal buck (Bogie) seems to be doing fine and is growing well. Rabbit Lucy got removed from the visiting buck’s pen and Chesney put in.
We finished the cleaning of the front yard area and used the tractor to bring about 5 loads of plant material to the burn pile. We then added our accumulate household burnables and got a good fire going.
Installed the TV “Rabbit” signal multiplier and ran it to the TV in the kitchen and got it and the TV all ready to perform for Thanksgiving day parades and football games while I will be puttering with preparing the big meal.
11/21/01:
Filled the water tank today and had to jump start the generator battery again with the truck. Looks like we may have another battery problem with it after recently having to replace the one on the LP generator at the powerhouse.
The neighbor with the pigmy goat wether called and said she’d prefer it if we could take him tomorrow but there was no way we could manage that. We worked it out with her that she would keep it until around Christmas in exchange for a bale of hay. We will bring her the hay and return the borrowed Cal buck next week sometime.
K started all of the rabbits on terramycin in their water bottles to try to head off any further hock infection problems. We have just lost Sage to a foot abscess and today noticed that Chesney seems to have a small sore on one of her rear feet. The treatment will continue for 5 days.
It was cold last night, around 25°F, and the rabbit’s waterers all froze. Today we discussed and looked at possibly moving the rabbit hutches inside the chicken coop but there is no way they’ll both fit even if we can find a way to get them through the door (which is problematic). We decide that K will just have to bring the waterers into the girls barn to thaw when necessary when she does her AM milkings.
11/22/01:
Thanksgiving Day!
Thanksgiving feast
Cloudy about 90% of the day but there was good wind so power was no problem. We watched parades all morning while cooking and had a traditional Thanksgiving feast at around noon while watching a couple of football games. The TV “Rabbit” signal splitter/amplifier worked great and we were pleased with the great picture from the little TV which we hadn’t even plugged in for well more than a year.
11/23/01:
Had a lovely dusting of snow overnight, the first of the season.
Dosed all of the goats with 2cc of “Nasalgen” intra-nasally. It is a live virus vaccination which we have researched and are using in hopes that it is the solution to the chronic but sporadic dry cough and running nose that makes rounds between every one of them from time to time. We have all but ruled out a lung worm problem, both from fecal and nasal discharge cultures, plus our regular worming practices should have fixed that anyway.
11/24/01:
There was a minor, but inconvenient pipe freeze in the milking washroom in the girls’ barn this AM. K had to bring in the LPG space heater and things thawed pretty quickly. All the outside goat and rabbit waterers were frozen too. The temps got to into the 20’s last night, still 10 or so degrees warmer than we can expect regularly during the course of the winter so we’ll definitely have to work on fixing the situation.
We have discovered another smaller cut on Bosco’s chest near the barb wire snag from a week ago we’ve been treating. It’s not brand new and looks like it’s healing well but we shaved him and will work on keeping it clean. His other wound is starting to close but he insists on cramming all manner of junk into it which we have to keep cleaning out.
Worked at the goat barn re-insulating the area where the pipe froze last night. I found a section that had not gotten insulated originally and we’re hoping that this solves the problem. The next step is probably some serious re-plumbing. We also brought over a sheet of 3/8” OSB from the barn and made a little enclosure for the boy goats to be able to go and heat more efficiently with their body heat on the really cold nights if they choose.
Made a cheddar but it seemed to be kind of dry and the curds didn’t stick together very well.
Also laid out on the ground outside our most recent deck plan. We marked out the key features and staked out the lines with some CAUTION tape then arranged all the yard furniture we think we’ll want there within the boundaries. It looks maybe too big but we’ll live with it for a little while before making any changes.
Our most recent TV satellite receiver has gotten so bad now that K was forced to call and see if there is something these people can do for us. It hasn’t been right since we got this replacement just a month or so ago but now it’s missing taping halves of shows and keeps re-setting all of it’s defaults, not being able to communicate with it’s own other components, erasing all our programming, and refusing to operate the VCR controls like it’s supposed to most of the time. Anyway K called and now they’re going to send out another receiver. I think this is our 4th one in less than a year. At least this time they are waiving the shipping charges and have implied that they will give us a credit for some of the lost programming time we’ve experienced.
Fantastic sunset tonight!
11/25/01:
Incredible wind all last night. So much so that when we woke up the batteries were almost fully charged well before the sun rose. The Trimetric was fluctuating between 53.6 and 52.9 depending on the gusts of the moment, the highest morning readings we can ever remember. Good thing too because there was no sign of the sun as a storm front moved in. The wind kept up all day.
This is the last day of administering the Terramycin to the rabbits’ water.
Worked on the ranch log book and web site all day. K did much office work, getting caught up on computer accounting entries for the last several months. Listened to lots of Christmas CD’s.
11/26/01:
Very cold overnight, down to about 19°F. The pipes were frozen in the barn when K went to do the morning milking so we had to haul water from the house for the animals and cleaning. The main generator ran for a while this morning.
11/27/01:
Temp down to 17°F last night and the pipes were again frozen hard in the goats barn. Again we hauled water from the house. Had some snow showers in the morning.
Made a trip into Show Low today with a stop in Taylor to pick up 100 lbs of chocolate from our Shamrock salesman for this year’s toffee making. The snow started to stick and there were a couple of inches in Taylor by the time we left but the roads were clear just a few miles to the south and there were clear skies in Show Low. Went to Coke and Pepsi for syrup, Wal-Mart, Chinese lunch, a couple of hardware stores (supplies for insulating the goat barn pipes), and the feed store in Taylor.
Worked all afternoon on heat-taping and insulating the exposed pipes in the barn.
Weird snow squalls moved through the valley all day but not much was left on the ground at the end.
11/28/01:
Temperature to 18°F last night but the pipes were fine. We ran into the problem with the instant-on water heater in that when the water began to flow through it’s very restricted channels it froze on contact. I’m not sure how we are going to avoid the problem without heating the whole milking room or finding a way to heat the heater before runnig water through it.
We filled the water storage tank at the well today but had to bring the truck up to jump-start the generator’s battery to pump with. It was cold but there might be a problem with it.
We put up some window blinds in the kitchen and living room and finished a couple of Christmas presents and K got them all wrapped.
Did some work at the goat barn, making a shelter/ramp for the girls to sleep under.
11/29/01:
Warmer last night @ 26°F. so no problems at all with the barn water.
K noticed that the rooster was missing most of his tail feathers and was bloody around his rump. We think that the hens are starting to pick on him for some reason.
I separated cream from the milk and made a cheddar cheese.
We discussed some possibilities for renovating the north house. Noticed that our water in the house was very red/off-colored. FedEx arrived with the newest satellite receiver.
11/30/01:
While we were having our morning cocoa the goats came up to the house to let us know that they thought it was time to go for their morning walk. They all congregated on the little porch at the back door and suddenly they were INSIDE the house. Apparently one of them had bumped the door handle (a lever-type) just right and the whole passel of them came tumbling in. They were as surprised as we were and were easily herded back out.
We went into town to return-send the replaced satellite receiver, go to the feed store and to lunch at the Mexican restaurant.
In the afternoon we worked on re-arranging our freezer storage room, and the office changing the location of the 2 chest freezers and making a couple of loads of stuff we’re not really using to the barn.
We installed the new satellite receiver.
Goat Angel came into “screaming heat” at about 1AM tonight. D went out to make sure that she wasn’t dying and found her on top of the rock pile, bellowing towards the buck’s pen. She screamed all night.