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Stemple Creek Ranch organic grass fed beef and lamb from Marin

Our all natural organic grass fed beef and lamb from Marin County bay area

Ranch Tour – Sept 10 at 11:00 AM

August 30th, 2011

Our next Ranch Tour is September 10 at 11:00 AM, please join us for some outdoor fun and treats!

We will give you a walking tour, share our family history, and explain how we do things at Stemple Creek Ranch. Then we’ll BBQ some tasters and enjoy the scenery! We will not be doing a full BBQ lunch this time, but feel free to bring your own picnic lunch or head down to the Tomales Deli afterwards where you can get a Stemple Creek Ranch burger and mingle with the Tomales locals. If you are interested in joining us please contact us or RSVP to the event on facebook, we’d love to have you. RSVP’s are required. We will send directions and details to those who RSVP.

If you are interested in a ranch tour but can’t make it on September 10, please let us know; we do informal ranch tours frequently.

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Spring Has Sprung

May 3rd, 2011

And just like that we have gone from having too much water to hoping to get just one more bit of rain before summer is upon us. We are so fortunate to have had as much rain as we did this winter, but now we want to hold on to the green grass for as long as possible before it dries out into the quintessential California “golden” hills of summer.

Speaking of summer, it is going to be a busy one for us at Stemple Creek Ranch. We continue to sell our beef and lamb at the Sunday morning San Rafael farmer’s market at the Marin County Civic Center, and we are also going to start attending the Valley of the Moon Certified Farmer’s Market market at the Sonoma Plaza on Tuesday evenings. If you haven’t already, please come down and say hello to us!

We are hosting our annual Open House and BBQ on Saturday, May 21 at 11:00 AM. If you would like to join us for some good, old-fashioned outdoor fun, learn about how we do things at Stemple Creek Ranch, and enjoy the best burger you have ever tasted, please RSVP and let us know you can make it.

Last but not least, our beef is going to be featured alongside the wines of Au Bon Climat at a Winemaker’s Dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Vin Antico in San Rafael. The dinner is on Monday, June 6, 2011, and boasts a five course menu that looks absolutely amazing. We will be at the dinner giving a short talk about our ranch and beef, and of course would love to see you there. If you can’t make it to Vin Antico on May 6, go another time. Our beef and lamb is regularly featured on their menu and this is a great way to try our meat, enjoy a fabulous meal, and support a local restaurant that supports local agriculture.

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Join Us For A Tour

January 28th, 2011

Our next tour dates are below, please do join us for one. We will show you around the ranch, explain how we do things here, grill up some tasty samples of our beef and lamb, and promise to show you a good time. Kids and friends are welcome, please do invite others but make sure to RSVP on our facebook page or via email. We will send details to everyone who RSVPs.

Saturday, February 12 at 11:00 AM

Saturday, March 5 at 11:00 AM

Sunday, April 10 at 11:00 AM

Hope to see you there!

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December On The Ranch

December 13th, 2010

It has been a busy few months on the ranch. The bulls have all been tested to make sure they are ready to “go to work” and have been put into the pastures with the cows. This year we have one bull for every 25 cows and we will give them about 75 days to conceive. Traditionally we see more than 50% of our cows impregnated within the first 30 days. Those bulls are busy right about now! The cow gestational period is almost exactly the same length as for a human beings, so the calves will be born around September 2011. Here is one of the bulls just before he was put in with the cows on a particularly frosty morning.

Meanwhile, our fall calving cows have all had their calves and most of the ewes have had their lambs. There are little cuties running all over the place! These lambs are just a few hours old.

We have had over 8 inches of rain this season, which has been more than enough to turn the grass nice and green as you can see from these photos. We have already had enough rain to keep our grass growing through the winter months. Now we are trying to balance our cattle numbers with pasture availability to keep from creating muddy spots and chewing up the pastures too much.

We have also had a few tours recently and had lots of fun with both old and new friends, alike. This one was a group of families from San Ramon Elementary School. We were lucky enough to have Loren’s sister Melissa and her family join us for this one. Melissa is the family’s resident expert on the history of the ranch and area and so it was a special treat to have her along.

Our last tour of the year was this past weekend, another great group of folks braved the wet grass and mud and ventured out into the pastures with us. After our hike we were all rewarded with sunny skies while we BBQ’ed some beef and lamb tasters.

Thanks to everyone who joined us! If you would like to join us for a tour in the new year these are our tentative dates for the first few months, drop us a line if you are interested: February 12, March 5, April 10 and May 22.

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Welcome Ramini Mozzarella

October 19th, 2010

Stemple Creek Ranch and the Poncia Family is thrilled to welcome Craig Ramini of Ramini Mozzarella and his herd of water buffalo to our ranch. Ramini Mozzarella is renting out an original dairy site on our ranch to pasture and milk his water buffalo. He is going to start making farmstead mozzarella cheese that will rival the mozzarella di bufalo that is made in Italy. For all of you cheese lovers out there, you will have to wait until sometime next year to get your hands on his amazing cheese, but we assure you it will be worth the wait!

Here, Loren and Avery welcome Craig to Stemple Creek Ranch with a champagne toast in the milking barn:

The water buffalo get accustomed to their new pasture on the ranch:

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Our Next Ranch Tour

August 31st, 2010

We have had many inquiries for our next Ranch Tour. It will be Sunday, September 12 at 10:00 AM. We will give you a walking tour, share our family history, and explain how we do things at Stemple Creek Ranch. Then we’ll BBQ some beef and lamb for you to taste and enjoy the scenery! We will not be doing a full BBQ lunch this time, but feel free to bring your own picnic lunch or head down to the Tomales Deli afterwards where you can get a Stemple Creek Ranch burger and mingle with the Tomales locals. If you are interested in joining us please contact us or RSVP on facebook, we’d love to have you. RSVP’s are required. We will send directions and details to those who RSVP.

If you are interested in a ranch tour but can’t make it on Septemeber 12, please let us know, we do informal ranch tours frequently.

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Passionate About Grass-Fed

July 26th, 2010

One weekend last month we had a very busy and fun weekend of tours and events at the Ranch. One of our guests was Jay Hamilton-Roth and his family. Jay is the creator of Business With Passion, a television documentary series that features interviews with people who have successfully transformed their long-term passion into a successful business. Jay interviewed Loren and took some beautiful footage of the Ranch, and we were featured on the Business With Passion that aired tonight on Marin County Comcast Channel 26.

Take a look at the video:

You can also view the video on the Business With Passion website, please click here.

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Making Hay When The Sun Shines

July 25th, 2010

Part of the benefit of a great grass season like this one we enjoyed this spring is the opportunity to harvest feed and store it for the upcoming winter months. In addition to windrowing most of our pastures, we also made 35 tons of small hay bales (100 pounds each) and 90 tons of round bales (1200 pounds each).

The round bales are something new for us this year and somewhat of an experiment. They are wrapped in plastic to seal in the grass and to promote the fermentation process. This produces what is called silage or haylage. It creates a high moisture, higher nutrient feed than the dry feed that we make or what is left in the fields. Here are some photos of the baling process and the finished products.

Windrowing the grass.

Making the round bales.

Wrapping the individual bales.

Round bales stacked and ready for use later this year as feed (and now as a jungle gym for visiting friends Dan, Matt & Nick).

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The Golden State

July 11th, 2010

The time of year has come when the lush green grass is dried out by the warm summer days and our pastures begin to remind us of why they call California The Golden State. There is still some green in some of the fields, but a huge difference from just a few weeks ago when it was green as far as the eyes could see.

We recently windrowed (mowed) the grass many of our pastures. This process cuts the tall grass and lays it down in rows. The cut grass will stay there until we let the the cows come along and eat it in the Fall. This helps clean up the pasture and keeps the quality of the grass at a higher level into the Fall months. We also get some nice regrowth in the mowed pastures.

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Stemple Creek Ranch Tour

June 19th, 2010

Recently we hosted a ranch tour and meat tasting for the San Mateo Natural & Organic Beef Meatup Group, organized by Susan Fierro. One of the group participants, Gary Lam, was generous enough to video the tour and share it with us. If you come to visit for a ranch tour (please do!), this is a little taste of our paradise that you will get see.