As we close out the year we would like to thank our customers for purchasing Lava Lake Lamb and helping further our vision. The food choices we all make have a direct impact on our planet, on animal welfare, on local economies and our own health. When you buy Lava Lake Lamb you are making a choice to support a business that is:

Good for the earth:

At Lava Lake, our goal is to protect the landscape we’re privileged to use and the wildlife that live there.  When you buy Lava Lake Lamb you are saying “Yes!” to ranching that is predator-friendly, doesn’t use chemicals for weed management, where the grazing methods and habitat restoration work ensure that we’re leaving the landscape better off than we found it, and where wildlife flourishes alongside the sheep.

Good for the livestock:

I’m assuming we’re all carnivores here, so I will speak freely:  The animal you are eating had a good life, and lived out of doors in a fantastically beautiful, wild landscape. It was never confined to a feedlot eating food it wasn’t intended by nature to eat. It was handled with respect and care by experienced shepherds. If you’re going to eat meat, Lava Lake Lamb is a great, responsible choice.

Good for our rural community:

Individually-owned farms and ranches are an integral part of rural communities. Operations that are forward-thinking have an energizing effect on their neighbors, resulting in more local food production and distribution, more organic products, more on-the-ground conservation taking place. Lava Lake helped launch and supports two successful local organizations that are having an impact on local food distribution and working landscape conservation

Good for you and your family:

Our lamb is 100% grass-fed, never given hormones or antibiotics, raised and processed with the highest standards – the meat is pure and delicious and good for you.

So thank you for supporting Lava Lake Lamb – we truly appreciate your business.

Last weekend we harvested crabapples at Lava Lake.

Fall is a time of contrasts for me. Summer is such a busy time at the ranch, but the days are so long they can handle all the busyness. In fall it seems like the pace actually picks up, if that’s possible, yet everything around us – the shortening days, something indefinable but palpable in the air itself — is clearly trying to slow us down, ease us into winter. In our cold country, animals and people alike harvest what crops remain. Bears gorge on choke cherries, rodents store up grain, folks cover their gardens at night in the hopes of protecting them from frost and gaining just a few more warm growing days.  And I pick crabapples.

Our trees are only about 12 feet tall so we can climb up on short ladders and get the fruit easily. Crabapples hang on stems in little clusters. I like to hold a cluster in my hand and carefully bend the stem just at the top of the fruit so that I don’t have much work to do before making them into jelly – I don’t want a bunch of stems and leaves in my bowl. This means I have to pick slowly and carefully, and I found myself enjoying every minute of that task. I didn’t want it to end; I wished it could take all afternoon. The pleasure was in standing outside in the sun, feeling the cool breeze, noticing all the shades of red as the crabapples plopped into my bowl and imagining the beautiful little jars of ruby-colored jelly I would make with them.

Sometimes we hurry through our chores, rushing to get to the next thing. Sometimes that’s necessary in our busy lives. But more and more I am trying to enjoy each task in my day, whether sitting at my computer to do some writing, organizing the storage shed or harvesting fruit.  I’m not giving up efficiency – I can’t afford to. But being in the moment, being grateful for whatever task is before me, seems to reduce the stress of busyness.  Maybe it’s a fall thing.

Next weekend I’m going to make jelly. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

We have eight huge old Lombardi poplars on the lane into the ranch compound. They are slowly dying and, depending on who you ask, are either an embarrassment or works of natural art, like an Andrew Goldsworthy installation. Brian and I fall into the “works of art” camp, so they are left alone. Our biologists love them too because they serve as excellent bird habitat, particularly for raptors, including great-horned owls.  The owls have nested in the trees for the past couple of years and our ranch manager’s family have had fun watching the babies grow and fledge. This year was no exception – a clutch of owls hatched in the spring. By the time I arrived in mid-June the birds had fledged and Bodie, our 12-year old resident naturalist, said they had left the nest and hadn’t been seen for several days.

My first night at the ranch I was nestled under the down comforter in my sheep wagon, enjoying the cool evening breeze coming in the window, the stars sparkling in the night sky, and was just about to drift off to sleep when I heard what could only be described as a terrible, raspy squawk. I couldn’t imagine what it was – I’d never heard such a noise at night before. The vast majority of birds rest at night and don’t make a sound. What was it? It went on literally all night long. The next night was the same story. I emailed our bird researcher friend Jay Carlisle and asked if it could be a young owl and he said yes – young owls make a raspy begging call. That night the racket started again and suddenly there was a terrific crash from the direction of my bathhouse – I ran out and trained my flashlight on its metal roof and there sat an enormous great horned owl. He had apparently crash-landed, not yet being an expert flyer. He swiveled his head to look at me and obligingly let out a loud “grawnk!” That proved it – I was being serenaded every night by teenaged owls.

Over the next month we spotted the owls sleeping in the willow trees near our yurt compound, and every night we heard them calling for food. One day after we bailed our first cutting of hay the kids saw two of our owl friends sitting in the field in the shade of a huge one-ton bale. The kids crept up from behind and Bodie managed to crawl out onto the top of the bale and look down on them before they flew away. They have given us a lot of entertainment this month.

I haven’t heard them for the past few nights, and I suppose they are maturing now and learning to hoot properly, as they should, but I will miss their crash landings and awful squawking.

And the aging poplars are here to stay.

“Teenaged” Great-Horned Owl

Lombardi Poplars

photo credit: Colin Allen

About a year ago Brian and I met Cyril and Blakesley Chappellet and struck up a friendship based on many common interests – sustainable agriculture, great food and wine, conservation, and a love of California and Idaho.  Cyril’s family owns and operates Chappellet Winery on Pritchard Hill above the Napa Valley, producing some of the state’s finest wines. The Chappellet family has also been coming to Sun Valley for decades, and they are actively involved in the community here. Last year they suggested that we join forces to donate a special item for the Sun Valley Center of the Arts’ annual Wine Auction, and we agreed. Last Saturday the winning bidders and their guests came out to Lava Lake for a tour of the ranch, followed by a lamb dinner prepared by Cyril and Blakesley, and an overnight stay in sheep wagons for a few lucky guests.

Here are some photos that tell the story:

We started the afternoon with a picnic in the easternmost part of the ranch near Craters of the Moon National Monument.

Guests filled Mason jars with wildflowers, including mule’s ears, yarrow and Indian paintbrush.

Upon returning to Lava Lake Ranch for a BBQ, Bodie Bennett told the guests what was involved in raising a 4-H lamb.

The table offered guests a beautiful view of the lower Pioneers.

The Chappellet Family’s awarding-winning wines were in abundance for guests to enjoy.

Chappellet wine and Lava Lake Leg of Lamb, perfectly grilled by Cyril Chappellet, were highlights of the meal.

Winning bidder Billy Weidner and guest Brenda Norton.

Co-host Cyril Chappellet addresses the group.

A few lucky guests spent the night at Lava Lake Ranch in authentic sheep camps.

Thank you to Cyril and Blakesly Chappellet for co-hosting an extraordinary event with Lava Lake Lamb. We hope all involved had as much fun as we did.

Photo credits to Luke Schlumbrecht, Blakesly Chappellet, Phoebe Bean, and Colin Allen.

In the arid landscape that is south-central Idaho, water is precious to humans and wildlife. The streams that course out of the mountain canyons are a source of food and a haven of cool refreshment for all kinds of creatures.

At Lava Lake Main Ranch, Copper Creek flows out of Blizzard Mountain at nearly 10,000 feet, down through a wide sagebrush canyon into our hay fields, and finally into Lava Lake. The lower reach of the creek was re-routed into a straight, bare channel many years ago to make the hay farming more efficient.  Farming and ranching is a tough business, and decisions like that are completely understandable. But after some study we concluded that we could adjust the farming practices and improve a vital wildlife corridor. So, three years ago, with the help of government agency partners, we embarked on a project of restoring over 2 miles of stream corridor. Big earthmoving equipment was brought out to the Ranch and for a few months it looked like we were creating a giant parking lot.

The first few phases of the work are complete and we now have a meandering stream course, with rocks strategically placed to slow down the spring water flows, and banks planted with the woody species we find along our creeks in this region: willow, hawthorne, wild rose, currant and serviceberry.  In addition, we seeded a buffer zone from 200 to over 500 feet wide on each side of the newly configured creek with a variety of grasses and wildflowers to help stabilize the system and provide cover and food for sage grouse and other species. This wetland area will be dedicated to habitat from now on.

The guiding spirit of this project is Alan Sands, a biologist with The Nature Conservancy who has been helping direct our conservation efforts at the Ranch for ten years. Alan’s vision and know how have been invaluable to us.  I saw Alan and our friend and colleague Justin Stevenson last week when they came out to collect data on how the plants are doing. Most of the species are doing well but some have struggled and a few will need to be replanted; but overall Alan is pleased. He was delighted to report that he and Justin surprised a family of mallards on the creek—the first time lower Copper Creek has hosted nesting ducks in many a year.

When we see sage grouse in the grasses along the banks we will have a party.

Late Friday morning we were treated to a visit from Jay Carlisle and Heidi Ware. They have been conducting bird surveys all over the ranch for the past few days, continuing research we began in 2001. Jay is the Research Director for the Idaho Bird Observatory, a unit of Boise State University. His work helps us track our success in enhancing wildlife habitat through our grazing management and restoration projects.

It is always great to see Jay. His knowledge is fantastic, and his enthusiasm is contagious. Whenever I’m with him I wonder how I went wrong – why am I not working as a research scientist studying birds?

Jay and Heidi recounted some of the highlights of their survey: the Lewis’s woodpeckers, the great horned owl right where he’s been in years past, Heidi sinking up to her hips in a particularly boggy spot in Iron Mine Canyon.  They reported that the number of lazuli buntings seemed low, but it’s possible that is due to the late spring we’ve had: they are seeing birds at much lower than expected elevations, their migrations to higher ground seems to be delayed this year. As we stood talking in the driveway of the ranch compound, Jay occasionally noted the birds he was hearing – willow flycatcher, Western tanager, peewees – what I hear as a background white noise of distant tweets is, for Jay, a symphony of perfectly distinct voices.

They were dirty and low on fuel, so we offered them showers in the bathhouse and put some gas in their tank. They came out scrubbed and refreshed, and headed on down the road to grab lunch at the gas station, and do counts in Laidlaw Park for the BLM. Late spring and summer are the crunch time for these researchers, trying to get as many counts as the weather will allow.  Their task feels so obvious and satisfying to me: they observe, record and report.  But I know it’s really not that simple.  They also construct hypotheses and test them, and constantly scramble to get enough grant money to keep going. They work incredibly long hours, sleeping in tents and washing up only occasionally, eating a lot of peanut butter. Worse, by its nature their work brings them face-to-face every day with the reality of extinction. There must be dark hours when the data is depressing, and they wonder if they can make enough people pay attention to make a difference. But they keep at it. Heidi will begin graduate school at BSU this fall, breaking new ground in studying the effects of noise pollution on migratory birds. The birds are lucky to have these advocates, as are we all.

Bird watching at Fish Creek.