When the opportunity to farm my family’s ranch came about, we decided to take up the challenge. Growing up riding and working cattle on the ranch had awakened in me a persistent, itching nostalgia for old-world cattle ranching that did not wane as I grew older, married Ned, had children and became an interior designer in San Francisco. The steep learning curve associated with ranching has proven to me and Ned, a Silicon Valley man, to be an ever-deepening mystery. Who thought you might buy a livestock guard dog only to discover his propensity to chew on sheep’s ears? Or that Longhorn cattle, whose horns are wonderfully decorative, are really quite intimidating when you attempt to move them from field to field? The humbling reality of starting a ranching operation has not thwarted our ambition to bring new life to old ranching traditions, but rather, an unfamiliar and welcome challenge.
Production Systems: Bees, Flowers / nursery plants / turf, Livestock, Orchard and Vine Crops
Crops/products: Apiary Products Honey, Chickens, Ducks, Flowers Cut, Olives, Sheep and Lambs, Turkeys
Conservation Practices: Carbon Farming, Combustion System Improvement, Compost Application, Critical Area Planting, Hedgerow Planting, Holistic Planned Grazing, Nutrient Management, Prescribed Grazing, Range Planting, Regenerative Farming Practices, Regenerative Grazing, Residue And Tillage Management, No Till, Riparian Restoration, Silvopasture, Soil Sampling, Windbreaks/Shelterbelt Establishment and Renovation
