Our annual Open House and BBQ is on Saturday, May 5, 2012.  We will be giving a tour of the ranch, grilling burgers, and perhaps adding in some Cinco de Mayo festivities, West Marin style. 

The Open House will begin at 10:30 AM.  There will be tours starting at both 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM, with lunch being served at 12:00 noon.  The Open House and tours are open to the public and free of charge, but RSVP’s are required.  Lunch is $10.00 for adults and $5.00 for kids 12 years and younger.  

To RSVP, please send us an email with the number of children and adults that are in your party.  If you are planning on eating lunch, please pay in advance on our website.  On the Shop page, click on the item called “Events” and use the drop down menu to chose how many adults and children are in your party.  We will send an email the week before the event with directions and more last minute details.  Please feel free to bring kids and friends, but please do RSVP for everyone who will be joining you.    

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.

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.

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!

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.

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:

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.

Take a look at the video:

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