Straus Home Ranch

This is winter?

A shoutout to our friend and webmaster Ryan Paraggio, for creating our beautiful new website, with photo galleries, much improved functionality, and mobile friendly and updated design.

Two updates: 1) Through the end of 2020, we can only offer accommodation for essential workers; and 2) During shutdown, we are donating 100% of profits from our online ‘shop’ to regional food banks and to assisting those who are experiencing homelessness. Be safe, stay sane and, together, we’ll get through this.

To support the California Artisan Cheese Guild we've donated 2 nights at our ranch. If interested in this stay, or another in the redwoods, or any cheesy gift, you can browse and bid here. https://bit.ly/CACGAuction

Congrats to Vivien, her #CheeseTrail project and the many local artisan cheesemakers featured in the latest National Geographic magazine!! https://www.nationalgeographic.com//how-california-family/

Our chickens always explore the ranch together, like the Three Musketeers (instead of Mooskateers, maybe they’re Cluckateers?) Anways, one morning, while working in the garden, two of them came running up to say ‘good morning’ but ... where was the third?? I called out moo moo moo, to which they always respond immediately, but one was MIA. Fearing that maybe she had been attacked by a fox (which is how I had already lost two of my flock), I searched around the ranch, callin...g out ‘moo’ with an increasing sense of dread. Eventually, I found her kinda far away, walking alone and obviously confused, but otherwise okay. I went over to the chicken coop to make a small repair and, instead of joining her chicken friends, she followed me. Very strange behavior, I thought. Then, as I worked in the coop, she climbed up the ramp, lay down in the nesting box, let out a screech-cluck that sounded like the chicken equivalent of giving birth and, when she arose a few moment later, there was her very first egg. Then she immediately ran back to hang out with her friends. Now, every time she’s about to lay an egg, I can tell by an immediately-preceding loud cluck. Photo Still life with fried eggs (the one on the left was store-bought; the other ‘grown’ here on the ranch. #chicken #farmfresh #cowchickens

In honor of mom - who died 18 years ago today - I just wanted to share a fun bit of trivia about mom and dad's contribution to the world of artisan cheese. Back... in the mid-1990s, mom was canvassing door-to-door for the Democratic party when she met Sue Conley. They quickly became friends and then Sue became friends with my brother and helped him launch our family’s creamery. Shortly thereafter, Sue cofounded Cowgirl Creamery. Sue started creating cheeses and, from the very beginning, mom was there. Even inspiring the company’s name! Sue recalled the name Cowgirl Creamery came to us one afternoon while we were standing in front of our barn, exchanging ideas with Ellen Straus. Across the street, a young woman was hitching her horse to a post in front of the bank, and Ellen remarked, Ladies, we are in the wild west. And I (Sue) said, So we must be cowgirls and this must be the Cowgirl Creamery." Mom helped Sue create her very first cheese: Quark, a German-style ricotta/cream cheese which my dad had grown up eating as a kid in Hamburg. Dad actually played an important roll, too ... in ‘quality control’. Every week, Mom and Sue would present yet another trial batch of quark, which dad would excitedly try, then just as quickly reject with conviction: ‘Not sour enough’. When it did perfectly match with his childhood memory which it eventually did - it was really quite delicious. I love this photo of Sue (on the left) and mom making quark (~1999), taken by Pt. Reyes based photographer (and old family friend) Art Rogers.

Vivien (my sister) and I keep imagining collaborating on a writing piece together. But ... we can’t agree on a topic. Tonight, she - who always reminds me how r...idiculously weird I am - suggested: Let’s start with your latest Remote Viewing post on Facebook. Ughh, it’s so horrible, that I can’t even look! Reflexively defensive, I counter: Oh? How about we write about *that* x-boyfriend? (Actually, I didn’t say that, but I wish I had.) So she continues: Or, how about when you and the love of your life (one of the many) who did this, this and THAT?? I say, Well, or we could write about how you actually used to talk to a chunk of Mom’s hair? The one that that fell out of her skull onto the headrest of your car while you were driving her to brain-tumor radiation? At that point, we both agree...yes...well, at least we have a lot of stories to tell about each other.

Sharing this image again cuz we love it so much!

Just hosted our very first birding tour of the ranch, led by local naturalist / expert David Wimpfheimer. On the ranch, we’ve seen heron, egret, a bald eagle, and even badgers. Give a shout if you’d like details and/or to schedule a tour for you group (up to 12 people). #birding #eagles #farmtour #tomalesbay