Author Archive

WW: Goslings

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012
Driving onto the ranch, there's a small walnut orchard to one side of the drive and making my way home from the gym early in the morning I came up on two families of geese who had staked claim in the orchard for their new offspring of adorable little goslings.

I'm not a huge fan of Canadian Geese....they tend to take over anywhere they land, eat all the oats from our planted hay and poop everywhere, in abundance......but this group was too cute.

Babies of any kind always make my day. 



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Wake Up Call

Monday, May 14th, 2012
Saturday morning, no school lunches to prepare, no rushing to get the kids up and ready, just a leisure, peaceful morning at home....maybe even sleep in a little.

No.

Not so fortunate.

Twelve five month old calves have been recently {the day before} relocated to the little pasture directly beyond our front yard......ONE of them VERY vocal at 6 a.m.  A little less startling than an alarm clock but very loud just the same.





















No sleeping in for me but actually thankful I was awakened by my furry little friend in time to view the sun crest over the hillside as it made its way up that morning.

















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Judging Cows ~ California FFA State Finals

Monday, May 7th, 2012













picture courtesy Hoards Dairyman

This past weekend the California FFA State Finals were held at California Polytechnic State University {Cal Poly} in San Luis Obispo.  Dominic and our friend Frank Gambonini coach the Petaluma Dairy Judging team and headed down to San Luis Obispo Friday.

The team of four consists of,  high school freshman; Alex Gambonini, junior; Frankie Gambonini, senior; Jessie Jones and junior; Regina Pozzi.

Competing in dairy judging allows kids to build their dairy knowledge at the same time as allowing them to develop important life skills such as public speaking, critical thinking, decision making, observation and self confidence.

Judging dairy cattle is a comparative evaluation of cattle in which animals are ranked based on their
closeness to "ideal" dairy conformation. Desirable dairy conformation involves functional traits associated with high milk production over a long, trouble free productive life.  The teams must judge different sets of four cows and heifers, place them in order 1-4 and give their set of reasons to back up their placement of the animals.

Results of the top four teams for 2012:


High Teams:
1st Petaluma FFA 1374 points
2nd Los Banos FFA 1368 points
3rd Atwater - Buhach Colony FFA 1361 points
4th Modesto FFA 1332 points
Congratulations to our 1st place Petaluma team.....each and every one of you is a true inspiration and fantastic role model to all kids and most especially to our up and coming young Ag kids.  I'm SO proud of you girls!  
Next stop Louisville, Kentucky for Nationals!


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National Burger Month

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
The weather's getting warmer, the days longer, and the outdoor grill is getting fired up.  May is National Burger Month and what better way to celebrate but to make your own sliders.  Super easy, the kids love them because they're tasty and oh so cute.



















For my sliders, I began with a pound of ground beef....I pulled one of our 'chubs' out of the freezer from the beef we raise.






















Form patties about the size of a sand dollar or so.















Salt and pepper is all you need for seasoning.















Next, you can do one of three things, fry them, BBQ them or use your indoor grill pan like I did.















They take about three minutes on each side.















For buns, we used King's Hawaiian dinner rolls, or any dinner rolls will do.















Lay some baby spinach greens {or any greens} on the bottom bun and add a generous dollop of Chobani Guacamole or whatever your favorite topping may be on top of the Slider.

Best Slider ever!



















What's your favorite burger?  Beef, Lamb, Turkey or Veggie?


Related Posts:
Lower Fat Guacamole with Chobani Greek Yogurt

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Butter and Egg Days from atop the Clover Stornetta Float

Monday, April 30th, 2012
It was a beautiful day for Butter and Egg Days in Petaluma, Saturday.  Paige and I headed into town at around 11:00 a.m. to meet up with our Clover Stornetta group to ride the float in the parade.

After downing two ice creams and two chocolate milks for snack, Paige was ready to raise up her arm for the 'parade wave' atop the River of Creams, the Clover Stornetta float.




The Butter and Egg Days theme this year was 'River of Dreams', so all floats tied into that.  On the Clover float, we sat in and around a boat made from, what else but egg and butter cartons sailing into the River of Creams.















Clo the Cow was on board, of course along with many of the dairy families part of Clover Stornetta.























As of April 1st, 2012, our dairy joined Clover Stornetta.  Clover is local to our area and is based in Petaluma.  Participating dairies are from Marin and Sonoma counties.  So now when our milk leaves the farm every day, it travels north 10 miles to Petaluma, where it becomes processed into cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream, sour cream, cottage cheese and pasteurized at the Clover Stornetta plant before it's shipped to the store.














Normally I'm watching the two hour parade from the sidelines, being on a float was a entirely different perspective for me.  So much fun!

Following along behind the Clover float walked Clo's entourage made up of Clover employee families and friends.














There were 146 floats in all and the only other float I snapped a photo of was the NBC float carrying Janelle Wang, a local news reporter.  Their float was super cool, it was honoring the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge and was complete with a flying NBC News helicopter circling above,














and a mini Golden Gate Bridge with cars that actually moved.















Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to leave a comment. I love to hear from you! Have a fantastic day!