Ranchero Nuevo

I have now spent a full week at Meadow Harvest grass-fed beef and lamb in Nehalem, OR. My role here is to learn what I can of animal husbandry and develop a certified organic market garden. There have been many vivid experiences in the initial week.

My hosts are Brian Tallman and Sage Walden who, over a few decades, have transitioned from dairy farmers to ranching for meat. Brian is a very strong and experienced cow and sheep man. I am flattered because he calls me Cain after David Carradine's character in the Kung Fu TV series. He thinks that because my footfalls are so silent that I must be training martial arts. How long will I wait before I tell him the real secret.

Sage is a textile artist, among other crafts, and she is in control of her materials from the time they come bleating out of their mother to when they are shorn to when the wool is spun and knitted into a shawl. I admire the landscapes in watercolor and caustic that she has painted and hung around the house. One favorite is a small scene of Nessie the Monster cruising a Scottish loch.

Speaking of things Scottish, my golf sticks saw the light of day today for the first time in time unknown. I went out to pasture with a pitching wedge and four rocks in my pocket and promptly lost all four in tall grass. The style of desultory golf I was playing is, I think, more in touch with how the game was played on the old British links. The bunkers on my course are made by sheep snugging the hillside in the lee of the wind. Consider title Ancient Way of Golf: How I sharpened my game on an Oregon sheep ranch to be mine by copyright.