Rancho Grande

Hi, my name is Bianca. I was born on Tuesday I am going to try and keep my hair clean and pretty and I’m never going to play in the mud. By the way, did you notice that my nose is the shape of a pink heart?

Rancho Grande would like to offer seniors and those with compromised immune systems (who have no other available help) free pick up from the supermarket and drug store to your home in or very near Ojai. With the spread now so severe we all need to protect those at risk. If you are in need of such service because you are isolating and committed to staying home, not because you need free delivery, then we want to help you. Please email us at [email protected] and we will get back to you on how we will help. Basically you will pay the exact charge for the goods and Rancho Grande will pay the charge to get the goods from the market to you. Stay healthy and happy everyone. This is going to be over soon.

All of Rancho Grande's ponds are still full but if we don't get rain soon we will start to see the Ponds drying up. That would be the first time in 5 years that this has happened. Dance for rain.

A typical morning at Rancho Grande where the animals get to play inside our cabins.

The recently born baby lambs are all friends. They hang out together all day. At night they sleep together in a heated igloo.

We got lucky with our guest Jason Beaver. He took so many great pictures of Rancho Grande during his stay and shared the link with us. We just have to share some with you. Here is a shot of the ranch showing the upper and middle ponds with the snow capped mountains framing the background. Jason has a great eye for outdoor photography.

The snow makes all the animals extra playful. It’s fun to watch them let their hair down and go wild.

The Famous Rock Room at Rancho Grande where guests enjoy some fun time indoors after a long day of outdoor activities.

We are off and running to a great start to 2021. We can’t wait to put the virus behind us and move on. Photo curtesy of Rancho Grande valued guest Jason Beaver.

Watson is our smallest dog but he is packed with a lot of punch. Sometimes the smallest things bring the biggest surprises. In this New Year we hope you find big surprises in little places. Wishing you an abundance of Health, Happiness, Prosperity and Love and the time to enjoy it all. Happy 2021.

Just born baby lamb with mom who seems a bit surprised by the entire ordeal. Hopefully mom is a fast learner.

Our new Petting Zoo looks like a Christmas village today.

A view from Rose Valley looking south with Nordhoff in the background. Mostly very Icy snow left over not much to play in here.

Nighttime at Rancho Grande. The snow just stopped with about 4 inches on the ground. The grounds are beautiful and sparkly from the snow flakes and the lights.

We just took a picture of this animal in our peach Orchard. It looked like a fox to us does anyone have any other ideas?

Snowing hard in Rose Valley right now and goats are taking refuge from it. We’ve had a lot of snow and rain and then snow again so there’s little accumulation as of now.

These two baby lambs, about a week old, have become best friends. The baby boy already has horns coming out. Alex has to hold the baby boy’s mom still while he gets milk from her because she is not a good feeder but at least she’s doing something.

These guys are Blue Footed Bobbys we met in the Galapagos islands. Aside from these exotic and much too hard to keep animals, what would be your one most important choice for a petting zoo. Of course we will stock our new petting zoo with our own animals and other animals in need of a home via rescue.

Imagine being 4000 feet above sea level and finding sea shells. Lots of them. These fossils and 100s more left untouched were found yesterday at Rancho Grande. They are millions of years old from a time when California was under water.

The goat on the rock has read the Art of War and understands that most battles are won by those that take the higher ground.

We want to be the first to wish all of our friends a very Merry Christmas. We know it’s been a hard year and people have lost and suffered. We hope that this season brings joy and happiness with good health and smiles to all.

Rancho Grande has a mix of Merino sheep and these guys called Baby Doll. I wonder why?

The baby lamb, who was interested in the rooster and strayed away is now trying to find a way to her mom who is screaming at her (perhaps she is saying get your butt over here now). We gave her a hand.

Topanga, our new baby Alpaca was introduced to the herd yesterday. Everyone came over to greet the new family member and give her a sniff. Her very proud mommy watched from a nice distance enjoying her freedom from the smaller isolated maternity ward she has been confined to the last few weeks.

Our chicken coup will be at the center of our new petting zoo as we remake this area of the ranch for visitors. We hope to be open in Spring.

Last years batch of baby goats doing their thing to upbeat music.

Baby number two of the season. Video this morning at 10 minutes old being licked clean by his mommy. We are hoping to get some people up here to play with the babies very soon. We want to make sure they get socialized well and love humans.

If the movie the film people at Rancho Grande are hoping to complete ever gets finished it should be very interesting.

Today we were blessed with our first baby lamb of the season. We are wishing for many more of these wonderful animals. Delivery went well, mom just needed a little help at the end that Alex provided. What a wonderful world.

Children that experience nature learn to love and respect the forest. Creating new and fun opportunities to visit creates more caring advocates. We have to encourage those that say they speak for the land to work to prioritize actions that provide easy access for all.

Heavy winter clouds in Rose Valley this morning are encouraging signs of wetter weather to come.

What do you do with 150 goats? Where still thinking about it but one thing we’re working on is a series of goat milk soaps that smell really nice.

We also purchased a kayak for our guests. Now we’re nervous that we’re going into a drought and we won’t be paddling in the water much longer.

The Official launch of our new all wood Boris the goat dinghy today named after one of our all-time favorite goats. We would advise against the super gloss finish, we’ve already scratched it in to many places.

This ancient smokehouse was used as our central energy depot. We moved all the equipment out and we now have a beautiful empty 7 by 14 foot brick building. We want to make the building an important part of the ranch for guest activities. Aside from a pottery making area with kiln we would love to hear ideas from you. If we choose your idea we will happily offer you two free nights as guests of the ranch.

Greetings from Rancho Grande. This mornings wonderful sunrise to start the weekend off.

The famous Rancho Grande Goat Walk begins everyday at around noon. One hundred and 25 plus goes leave their pen and in double or triple file, follow the leader around the ranch picking up everything they can eat along the way. A call of "where are my goats" and a bucket full of oats drives them all back to their pen a short time later.

Rancho Grande made it through the Thomas fire three years ago because the fireman showed up and saved the ranch. We remain grateful and humbled but also proud. Humans can do great things.

It’s Black Walnut season at Rancho Grande The floor surrounding the trees is loaded with these walnuts. They make great decorations but they’re not really edible. Anyone interested in collecting some for their arts and crafts supply please feel free to come to the Ranch and pick some up. Please Email us first at [email protected].

Alpacas in the snow last year. So far we are about 3 inches behind the average season in rain. We are hoping December brings some rain (and snow) to fill the void.

We lost so many trees in a windstorm last year we decided to put them to good use. We are building a 300 foot natural tree wood fence to surround our petting zoo play area.

The baby Alpaca born yesterday is a girl. We named her Topanga which happens to be a Chumash name. We moved her to a separate pen with just her and her mom so that they can be alone and focus on each other for a while. Mom and baby Topanga are doing very well.

Fun 60 second video of a 15 minute old baby Alpaca born just now at Rancho Grande checking out his or her new surroundings and world.

We are grateful for all our friends and the support we get from the community. We wish everyone a very Healthy and Happy Thanksgiving!

We just told Tabatha that Rudolph isn’t feeling well this year and Santa asked for her to ride his sleigh this Christmas Eve.

We had a small production team here today to shoot a clip for American idol. They said they had the entire Ojai Valley inn rented for their production this week. glad they had a nice day here. The fog just rolled in and covered the sky.

Of course we light our greenhouse up green at night so it glows green all night long.

Behold The Ditch Witch. Capable of digging deep and long electric and water lines in hard dirt in seconds is now a part of the Rancho Grande family.

Animals are smart. They know who is a good human and who might not be so nice. Their instincts tell them who to be afraid of and who to trust. And their big hearts tells them who to love.

The Cowgirl's shadow passes by the pond as she enjoys another great ride around Rancho Grande. We are hopeful that with all the news about the success of the Virus Vaccines coming out we will be able to completely open the ranch to all visitors very soon. Wishing everyone a great pre-thanksgiving week.

Last Thankisgiving we were blessed with 8 inches of snow. We are hoping the same for this year. This Thanksgiving Rancho Grande will be donating 20 gift certificates from the supermarket with a value of 50 dollars each to help families enjoy the holidays. Trevor Quirk, who has proven to be a genuine community leader, will help Rancho Grande by disbursing the cards to best serve the small amount of families we can. If anyone else would like to donate I am sure Trevor will accept and make your donation worthwhile. Wishing all a safe and beautiful Thanksgiving.

This week Rancho Grande is the set for a film production. Not sure what the movie is about but they are using a nice old Chevy for one scene.

Greetings from rancho grande. It’s 23 and we have a light dusting of snow on the ground here at 3500 feet. Wishing everybody a warm and happy week, whoever you are and wherever you may be.

With an Oink Oink here and an Oink Oink there, Here an Oink there an Oink everywhere an Oink Oink............ E-I-E-I-O

We found this really nice yellow umbrella table at a used everything store. Imagine how many people sat and had a hotdog on this table over the years. We still have several areas of the ranch that could use a nice vintage or rustic look to have a picnic on. If you have anything you’d like to sell that fits the category send us a picture. Maybe we can take it off your hands.

Celebrating the end of Halloween by eating a 40 pound pumpkin in under 30 minutes.

Is that mine? How the heck did that get there? What do I do now?

The late Katharine Hepburn said, as one goes through life one learns that if you don't paddle your own canoe, you don't move. She was wrong. The trick is to get the guy in front of you to do all the work and take it easy.

Nature is wonderful. This mom had the responsibility to raise 9 babies. We watched her and the kids every day for a few months. The babies thrived and grew strong and then one day the mom was gone and the kids were on their own. They were full grown ducks by then and they were ready to meet the challenges ahead. They decided to stay at Rancho Grande. Maybe they were hoping their mom would come back.They are still here. At home.

Rancho Grande wishes everyone a safe and very Happy Halloween.

Three day old baby goats practicing the art of head butting. How and why do they do that at such an early age?

Its warming up from a low tonight of 35 degrees. You can almost see the cold in this picture of four wonderful carrot eating kids. Stay comfortable and safe everyone.

Rancho Grande takes youth baseball seriously, we even built our own field. As fellow Ojai area residents we would like to extend the hand of peace to the Ojai Valley Little League and the Ojai Valley Baseball League. These two organizations suing each other need to resolve their differences and we want to help. We hereby invite representatives of both leagues to meet with us at Rancho Grande on Sunday November 8th at 11am. If you are truly serious about letting the kids play ball then please let us help mediate and settle the dispute and let the games begin. If you are an interested party, please RSVP to [email protected]. NO LAWYERS PLEASE. Please no personal comments here about either organization. They will not be helpful and they will be deleted. Let Peace come to the Valley and let the kids play ball.

Sometimes it’s hard trying to hand feed hungry goats that would rather feed themselves.

Wishing everyone a beautiful and thoughtful day. We have our eyes on you.

Guests of Rancho Grande enjoying picking the apples from the trees and feeding our pigs. Pigs enjoy that too. The roosters get the leftovers. Everybody is happy at Rancho Grande.

This video is for anyone interested in hearing 30 seconds of bahing from our lambs just before dinner is served.

At Rancho Grande we like to give credit where credit is do. We asked someone who was a wood maker to make us a large checkerboard butcher block for our guest kitchen. It was delivered today. Its way beyond what we expected and we are very grateful to have found this wood maker. Here is his website for anyone interested in hand made wood furniture. WillieWoodhauler.com

Huck has always been a dog who likes to stay in the car when the other guys are chasing squirrels. He’s the laziest dog we have and also the happiest. Maybe there is some relationship there?

With the fall season approaching and leaves falling down we decided to let these guys walk around the ranch a little more than usual. Every day they go explore an extra 10 feet because it’s all new to them and today they wound up on our front door.