Feast like you’re in Spain or Italy with one of our milk-fed lambs! “Cordero lechal” is the best, most tender lamb. Order one (or more) today to have it in time for Easter!
(707) 272-5477 MendocinoOrganics@gmail.com
Posts Tagged ‘lamb’
Cordero Lechal
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lamb, meat order on March 20, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Summer Lamb
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lamb, meat order on June 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Summer Solstice is here! How about celebrating the warm weather with some lamb? Our autumn-born lambs are available for purchase now -
Halves & Wholes
cut-and-wrapped
$8.00/lb
a half is about 25 lb, but actual weights will vary
Sheep are Here
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lamb on December 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Did you hear? Our sheep are back at Heart Arrow Ranch! They had a lovely summer pasturing in Potter Valley, but were ready to spend the winter back in the rangeland and give birth to their lambs at home. The home ranch feels a little more complete when the sheep are here. The guardian dogs are also very happy to roam the hills with the sheep.
As of Saturday, we have two dozen new lambs. Lambing season is always fun. We love watching the ewes fawn over their babies, and we’re always amazed with how hardy the newborns are in the early morning frost. The sunny days have been a great help!
Adam checking on newborn twin lambs.
August Hustle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grain, lamb, local food, pigs, potatoes, Potter Valley, sheep, tomatoes on August 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Farming is like dancing – there are slow dances and fast jigs and every pace in between. We’re at another hurried hustle this time of year. Summer crops like tomatoes, eggplant, and cucumbers are giving bloated harvests that call for routine attention.
Making tomato sauce with black plum tomatoes.
Yet under the guise of bounty, nature is slowly inching toward the quieter time of the year – fall and eventually winter – when crops slow down and the land lays still. So we are simultaneously prepping the ground and planting cool weather crops (those biennials like broccoli, lettuce and carrots) and preserving summer’s warm wealth in curing, pickling, making sauce and making sauerkraut.
Romanze potatoes that supplemented Live Power Community Farm CSA shares a few weeks ago.
With the higher food output this year, we’re also striving to consistently provide for markets we haven’t worked with regularly in the past, like Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op and Ukiah Brewing Company and Restaurant. We’re also finding that the markets and nearby restaurants can’t absorb all that we are producing, and CSAs are not in high demand here, so much of our food is shipping to the Bay Area. Hopefully, we are serving our community not just with our food but by bringing outside revenue in during these challenging economic times.
The pick-up truck loaded with an evening harvest of Riverside onions and Russian Banana fingerling potatoes.
As busy as we have been expanding farm production this year, we haven’t had much time to write about the process here. But, we’ve been striving to document with photos the daily work we do to grow as much nutritious, flavorful food as possible. Part of the process has been spending money. As they say, you have to spend money to make money. This season alone, we’ve acquired many tools to help us grow more food so it’s more affordable to buy and so that we don’t strain our bodies:
- three-bottom plow
- flail mower
- Farmall 100 cultivating tractor
- toolbar & flex planters
- 5.5 HP water pump
- hog panels
- poultry netting
- 30′ x 70′ high tunnel
- sunblocker shade structure
One of the flex planters on a toolbar we purchased in the Delta.
The shopping list goes on, and that’s only major capital investments. Fortunately, we don’t always have to buy things outright. Other farmers are lending us equipment or letting us make payments. A community of growers is so essential particularly when when you start out with nothing.
Berkshire pigs enjoying cucumbers
We’re also raising another round of pigs that will be ready in time for the holidays. Not only is pork really tasty, but our pigs will happily eat vegetable culls or whatever does not sell at the farmers market. Heritage Berkshire pork is delicious, so we’re definitely raising those pigs again!
The sheep grazing on irrigate pasture in Potter Valley.
We also bought a few more ewes and lambs to increase our sheep flock. Hopefully by the end of this season, we’ll have about 100 ewes. Our new Shropshire ram, Macho, should be getting familiar with the ladies now…
So, we continue to refine our farming system – doing trials of different crops to see what we can grow well, trying new feed rations and growing better hay and pasture for cost-effective yet delicious meat, fine-tuning all the mechanical processes, and improving relationships with all our customers. We’re very excited to be growing a lot more food this year. It’s a challenge, but the hard work is rewarding when we are able to partner with nature and people to nourish ourselves and our community.
About 1/3 of the onions
The durum wheat should be harvested soon.
And you think your kid sounds whiny?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lamb, nonsensical fun, sheep, video on February 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Try this for about 5 minutes.
Newsletter 3.4
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged crazy weather, lamb, soil, squash on January 3, 2011 | 1 Comment »
IN YOUR BASKET
Spaghetti Squash
Turnip
Braising Greens
Red Russian Kale
Green Onions
NOTES FROM THE FIELD
Happy 2011! We hope everyone had a great holiday season and is looking forward to weekly local vegetables again. We farmers are especially excited for the sun-filled week ahead. The rain came down so much on Heart Arrow Ranch that we have found new sinkholes and slides in the landscape. The land literally moves here.
Snow by Adam's loft on New Year's Day
Many more lambs have been born, keeping us busy, as we have to check them often and sometime bottle-feed them. In the month of December, over 20 lambs were born. We finally castrated our baby bull, which was like a mini rodeo event. And our pigs are in hog heaven as long as we give them enough straw bedding. With livestock, the rain makes manure and soil management challenging.
In the dry week ahead, we expect to cultivate and start planting vegetables in the new greenhouse. Even today, it was quite warm inside it. And we are spending most of our evenings on crop planning, budgeting, cash flow forecasting, and general brainstorming. Crop planning, including crop rotations and cover cropping, really means planning a year out. The weather that actually happens – like when the rainy season actually ends and starts – forces us to make adjustments in those plans along the way. As many of you know, that’s what makes farming challenging, but having CSA members like you, it’s less risky and more manageable. Thanks!
Eat well,
Adam and Paula
Roasted Spaghetti Squash with Herbs
Adapted from MarthaStewart.com
Ingredients:
1 spaghetti squash, halved lengthwise, seeds
removed
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, & more for brushing
1 tbsp packed light-brown sugar
Salt & pepper
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
¼ cup blanched hazelnuts (1 oz.), toasted and coarsely chopped
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400º. Brush the cut sides of squash with oil, and sprinkle with sugar and salt and pepper to taste. Place squash, cut sides down, on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast until tender, for about 45 minutes. Let it cool slightly on the sheet on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.
2. Using a fork, scrape the squash to remove the flesh in long strands. Place the strands in a large bowl. Add oil, Parmesan, parsley, cilantro, hazelnuts, salt, and pepper to taste. Toss, and serve immediately.
Did you know that you could eat spaghetti squash and meatballs?
Newsletter 3.3
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lamb, Newsletters, onions, video on December 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
IN YOUR BASKET
Royal Acorn Squash
Delicata Squash
Braising Greens
Carrots
Onions
NOTES FROM THE FIELD
Thanks to Covelo Organic, we have LOTS more carrots. We hope this will sustain your vitamin A needs over the holiday. Remember – no CSA shares Saturday, December 25 or Tuesday, December 28. It’s Christmas and Adam’s birthday, respectively! We have more little storage onions, which are perfect for dishes not requiring loads of onion.
Thursday morning, we had frost – a rarity – at Heart Arrow Ranch, but the row cover on our greens protected the crops. While the morning remained densely foggy in Redwood Valley, the sun was shining on Laughlin Ridge. It was still chilly for the two newborn lambs, though. In the past week, six of our ewes have given birth to eight healthy lambs.
twin lambs born last Saturday
The barley crop at the south end of Ukiah is growing fine, and our Berkshire pigs are gobbling up food so quickly that we will have to grind batches of their feed – last year’s grain crop – more frequently. We still have CSA Berk Shares (organic pork CSA shares) available until January 1. Let us know if you want to learn more about them.
We’re also working on permanent fencing for our beef cattle and sheep. Our bull escaped a few weeks ago and ate all the dino kale in the Pond Field, so this winter, we are taking on the expensive but necessary task of fencing. With Golden Vineyards’ help, we are putting up more fencing a bit at a time.
Have a wonderful holiday!
Eat well,
Adam and Paula
Braised Mixed Greens
Adapted from Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen
Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for finishing
1 small onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, 1 slivered, 1 halved
Greens
A few leaves or a few handfuls of sorrel or a
handful of chopped cilantro and parsley
Salt and pepper
1 ½ cups cooked beans
3 to 4 slices chewy bread
Shaved parmesan or crumbled gorgonzola
Instructions:
1. Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the onion and cook over medium-high heat. Add the slivered garlic after the onion starts to soften. Cook for another minue, and add the greens and herbs. Season with salt.
2. As the greens cook down, turn them in the pan. Once they’ve collapsed, add ½ cup water or bean broth, lower the heat and cook until tender. Just make sure there is some liquid in the pan for sauce. When the greens are done, add the beans, heat them through, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Toast the bread and rub it with the halved garlic. Arrange on plates and spoon on the greens and beans. Drizzle with olive oil and garnish with cheese.
Local Meat – Lamb
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lamb, local food on November 9, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday, the Press Democrat ran an informative article about the lack of meat processing facilities in the region, and the obstacle this presents to local ranchers and customers seeking local meat. We at Mendocino Organics have to cope with the lack of local food infrastructure (aka value-added processing near us). For example, today, we had to take our lambs to Occidental for slaughter.
How many miles are we taking our lambs? How many hours are we on the road? What are we doing to try to make these trips more efficient?
The day started with us 
rounding up most of our sheep in Potter Valley and pulling the 6 lambs ordered. 5 for Bar Agricole in San Francisco, and 1 for Patrona in Ukiah. From Potter Valley to Panizzera in Occidental was a 1.5-hour, 84-mile drive.
When we got there, we unloaded the sheep from our truck (we don’t have a livestock trailer yet) into a holding pen. 
After the lambs are slaughtered, on Thursday, someone from Bar Agricole will drive to Occidental to pick up the 5 lambs whole. The 1 for Patrona will be delivered to Sonoma Direct near Petaluma where it will be cut and wrapped because they requested it as such.
If we sell lamb retail, we also have to get them delivered to Sonoma Direct or elsewhere to get cut and wrapped in a USDA-inspected facility.
To make the drive down to Sonoma County more worthwhile, we went to Hunt and Behren’s, the mill from which we get organic feed for our chickens. We can buy it at the Farm Supply in Ukiah, but it’s less expensive directly from the mill…and we were already down the road.
At the end of the week, we’ll again drive south to Sonoma County – to Sonoma Direct – to pick up the cut and wrapped lamb for Patrona.
In many ways, we are very fortunate to be working with the restaurant, Bar Agricole. We don’t have to worry about the second step in processing, and we don’t have to drive back to the processing facility to deliver it to it’s final destination. That means less expense for us in time and fuel. Hopefully, we are contributing to a more sustainable regional food system. Until our local food system (aka Mendocino County) provides more demand and/or infrastructure is created that we can legally sell more of our lamb here, our farm will most likely continue to be a part of this larger food system.
Here is an interesting article from Choices Magazine, a publication of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association about sustainable regional food systems. “Local food” seems very popular now, and it’s a great ideal, but what about regional food?
Harvest Time!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged chicken, grain, hay, lamb, pasture, Potter Valley, sheep, squash on October 21, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
We have not posted news in a while, but it is no wonder – we are so very busy! And this week is no exception. As all the vineyards in Mendo are bustling with harvest, we have been assisting with the grape harvest at Golden Vineyards. It’s always exciting to collaborate with the Goldens, and although we’re doing a lot, we enjoy taking part in the grape harvest madness that has taken over the region. In some ways, the success of our farm depends on the success of the agriculture around us.
In terms of our own harvest,
we have been doing a lot of it. Since September, we have been supplying the five NCO Head Start centers in Ukiah with weekly CSA produce shares. Some of the summer’s bounty have been melons, sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, sweet peppers, chard, and more. Periodically, we have supplemented the Live Power CSA produce shares with our vegetables as well.
Since mid-August, we have been supplying produce to the bar and restaurant, Bar Agricole. This week, we are sending some lamb their way. It required us driving down to Occidental and back on a Sunday night to drop off the lamb for processing, but that is what we have to do as there is no place for us to do that in Mendo…
Speaking of lamb, our sheep still reside at 3WG in Potter Valley. They have been very happy there thus far, and we’re still putting in time and labor to rehabilitate a couple of the fields there. Growing hay and pasture is still somewhat new for us, so we are going to try growing a specific mix in one field and see how it compares with the other fields. There is still some tractor work to be done so that the irrigation water flows across the fields correctly. Many of the ewes are bagging up (their udders are becoming full of milk) meaning we will have more lambs soon. If you are interested in buying our lamb for your freezer, let us know. We may have some available right now.
Also, we are in the home stretch of the meat chicken CSA. This Saturday, October 23, we will have the 5th batch of chicken shares available for pick-up at the Ukiah Farmers Market. We also plan to have extras for market sale as well.
Earlier this week, we also got together with Doug from the Mendocino Grain Project to get some of our grain cleaned. Some grain we will be reseeding and some wheat will go toward the grain CSA.
This week, we have also been harvesting and curing the winter squash for the Winter CSA. So far, we’ve harvested a couple varieties of acorn, lots of spaghetti, and delicata. The butternut, kabocha, and other plantings are still maturing.
One truckload of many!
You may not have heard, but we finally got a 4-wheel tractor in August. Fall planting has been happening much faster with the large disk and shovels for bed-shaping!
With it being autumn now, we are following the weather forecast closely; we must plan for the first substantial rain. While we are doing all this harvesting, fall is when we plant our hay/pasture and grain. This year, we will be growing barley at the south Ukiah property.
Perhaps when the days are super short and we’re inside more, we will have more blog posts for you 
Update on Sheep in Potter Valley
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lamb, pasture, Potter Valley, sheep on September 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Let us first say that we are happy to be farming irrigated pasture in Potter Valley.
hi, we are happy farmers
The sheep seem very content as well.
'crunch chew nom nom'
Today was the third time we have moved the sheep around at 3WG Ranch. There are basically three fields we are leasing for pasture, one of which is divided into two areas. Today, we moved the sheep into the largest area which never got cut for hay this spring. We will soon actually separate the lambs that we want to gain more weight and put them into a different field which we mowed and irrigated earlier in August.
This field is greening up and will be ready for the lambs. The sheep were here a while ago before we mowed, baled the hay, and irrigated the field.
This is all known as ‘rotational grazing’!
Then there is another field which we hope to use in the future, but we are having to rehabilitate it to a good pasture. Right now, we are discing it so we can seed it.
For now, the sheep are all happy together.
who wouldn't be happy with this view and fresh summer air?
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Buy The Greenhorns co-edited by Paula Manalo Gaska. Email paula@mendocinoorganics.com to order one from the farm. Tags
What are we doing?
- Enjoy the spring bounty & spring weather as we officially transition to summer this week! This week's CSA... fb.me/6mNbqrbmM*** 16 hours ago
- Edgar, aka Boyfriend, heads toward the sheep after dinner. As dusk nears, the coyotes start howling up the hill,... fb.me/2ftxMPfbQ*** 2 days ago
- While we have closed new sign-ups for the Main Season Vegetable CSA, we are still accepting members for the 2013... fb.me/HAkOsBcd*** 3 days ago
