Author: admingrl

Homemade Pizza Memories
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Homemade Pizza Memories

Homemade Pizza Memories

Pizza Creations Created Memories

Bread making was Lorna Grieb Erickson favorite thing to do. She loved family get-togethers and over a period of years, created a wonderful recipe for homemade pizza that greatly pleased her family. Everyone looked forward to the pizza night as a special occasion. Lorna prepared the dough; then each family member could customize the pizza with toppings of their choice.

Everyone was all smiles as they put the pizza creations in the oven to bake.

The aroma was irresistible, with the family huddled around the oven in anticipation of the tasty bread and delicious cheesy/meaty toppings. All enjoyed the hands-on experience making their customized pizzas, and were all satisfied with the results.

Everything tasted better because all participated in making the pizzas together. Love and harmony in a warm kitchen.

It is a wonderful thing that this tradition is still being passed down from Lorna’s children to grandchildren and now to great-grandchildren.

Recipe for Grandma Lorna’s Homemade Pizza

Ingredients:

1 cup hot water

1 cup milk or 1 C cold water mixed with 1/3 C dry milk

1 tablespoon salt

1/3 Cup shortening

1 pkg. active dry yeast

½ cup sugar

6-7 cups all purpose flour

Home Made Pizza Instructions

In a mixer bowl mix together hot water, milk or water and dry milk, salt and sugar. Add shortening and yeast. Add 4 level cups of flour and mix on low.

Beat until smooth and elastic. Add 2 to 2 ½ cups more flour with mixer still on low speed. Dough should be soft and pliable but not sticky.

Cover and let dough raise for 15 minutes to ½ hour.

Grease 3 pizza pans. Divide dough into 3 parts and press into the pans forming a thin crust. Cover with small amount of desired pizza sauce and sprinkle with dry ground oregano. Cover sauce with grated Colby jack cheese. Add additional toppings as desired.

Preheat over to 375 degrees and bake pizzas for 15-20 minutes or until desired doneness.

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Just Be Held

We’ve been riding a ranching roller coaster. This experience often brings us to the place where we just want to be held. We love having our hills green by Thanksgiving, but that didn’t happen. The hills were not green by Christmas either. So, we waited, trusting. However, the hills were still not green by Valentine’s day so all our cows and babies were shipped to San Joaquin to a feed lot. That decision was made after feeding out three barn loads of hay.  Papa with his tractor would load our RTV Kubota’s with hay and off we would go, up into the hills to hand-deliver feed. 

While the cows and babies were away, hail hit our hills.

The natural feed and the hills have simply not recovered. 

Just Be Held

Many other crazy events have happened in our lives so we are trusting in God to see how He puts the Grieb Ranch back together.  As the words from Casting Crowns’ song Just Be Held explains, “Your world’s not falling apart, it’s falling into place.”

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Grieb Ranch Calving season 2020 was Quite Memorable

Like the rest of 2020, calving season on the Grieb Ranch was quite memorable.  It kicked off with pulling a calf… this happens all the time, nothing too exciting. Happily mother cow and baby are fine. Our next adventure began when we noticed a heifer straining to calve. We got her in and then it took three of us three hours and sore bodies to deliver a dead calf.  The mother cow is now fine and has re-joined the herd. 

Grieb Ranch calves – Sharon Jantzen Photos

Calving Season C-Section

Those two experiences were nothing compared to what came next. This story begins when we noticed a heifer kept going off by herself in the brush.  We were detecting signs of a calf coming, yet we felt something was not right.  So, after examining the heifer, it was determined that her calf was “mis-presented” – meaning the calf was upside down with its head and front legs facing away from the exit.  Calling the vet was our best course of action. Then we patiently waited.  With the vet arriving around 8:00 at night in the darkness, providing aid took place under the barn lights.  The first course of action was trying to turn the calf, then pulling the calf was attempted, finally we realized cutting the calf out was the only option left to save the heifer. The vet performed a c-section to remove the calf. 

  • Trying to pull the calf
  • C-section Prep
  • C-section Ready

We all got to watch and it was an amazing process.  Fun fact: The vet put on 3 pairs of gloves to start the procedure so that at each new level of  the process he had a clean pair of gloves.  All ended well with the young cow, but not for her calf.  The vet finished stitching her up at midnight. 

Tiny Tim is the Star of the 2020 Calving Season

Fortunately for us, our young c-section heifer was introduced to Tiny Tim, an orphan calf we received from another ranch. He weighed all of 30 lbs when he arrived. Upon his arrival we tried to graft him to a heifer whose calf had vanished, but the relationship didn’t stick. Thus, Tiny Tim was available to be introduced to this young c-section heifer, their connection was like magic . . . or so it seemed.

Checking on the pair the next morning revealed the heifer had broken out of the pen and abandoned the little orphan calf. So, the little guy was tubed with electrolytes, kept under a heat lamp and Connie began bottle feeding Tiny Tim three times a day. But all was not lost for Tiny Tim, as a day later during our rounds of checking cows we came upon one with two dead calves at her feet. Tiny Tim was introduced to this cow and she has become his fourth cow mom and fifth mom including Connie with the bottle!

Calving Season Not to be Repeated

Mother Cow and calves are doing great. – Sharon Jantzen Photos

More good news for the young heifer c-section cow. We happened to have a friend that had twin calves. Calves and mother cows do better with no competition for milk. So our c-section heifer got a calf grafted on her. All new mothers and calves are doing great. We are thankful, yet still reeling from this difficult calving season. We hope to never have another one like it!

Here’s looking on the bright side of the Calving Season 2020
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Krum Kake Yum Cake

Krum Kake Yum Cake | The Story of Ranching at Grieb Ranch
Yummy Krum Kake filled with whipped cream
Krum Kake Yum Cake | The Story of Ranching at Grieb Ranch

The wooden cone shown was carved by Merriam Erickson sometime in the 1970’s. As cultures have blended through the years this Norwegian dessert was always a favorite at family gatherings at New Year’s! It is so wonderful to still have the use of this handmade cone and the Krum Kake iron as we recall special times spent with our loved ones. 

Recipe for:  Krum Kake

From the Kitchen of: Lorna Grieb Erickson                                                        Servings: about 24

Krum Kake Yum Cake | The Story of Ranching at Grieb Ranch
Krum Kake Iron

Needed equipment: Krum Kake Iron and Wooden Cone shaper

Ingredients

  • 3 large eggs
  • ½ Cup Sugar
  • ½ Cup Butter melted-one cube
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • ½ Cup flour

Instructions

  1. Beat 3 eggs until thick and lemon-colored.
  2. Add ½ Cup sugar and mix well
  3. Add 1/2 Cup butter, melted
  4. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and mix in
  5. Add ½ Cup flour to the liquid and mix
  6. Heat Krum Kake iron over medium heat.  When a drop of water sizzles then the iron is ready.
  7. Put 1½ Tablespoons batter in center of iron.
  8. *Turn frequently until Kake is light brown.  About 1-2 minutes.  Carefully remove from iron with a butter knife and immediately wrap around cone to shape. 
  9. Leave to cool while cooking next Kake.                      
  10. Just before serving fill with whip cream.

*Do not multi task while cooking. Watch carefully!

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Ranch Style Wild Dove Appetizers

Recipe for: Ranch Style Wild Dove Meat Appetizers

From the Kitchen of: Connie Grieb Willems

Servings: 2 dove portions per person as an appetizer

Ingredients:

  • Dove meat – enough meat pieces to fit evenly in your pan
  • Flour
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Toothpicks
  • Bacon-1/2 strip per dove
  • Olive oil to cover pan bottom

Instructions:
Mix flour, salt and pepper together. Roll dove meat in the flour mixture and then wrap dove with bacon. Secure bacon with a toothpick. Heat oil and then reduce heat to medium high. Cover the pan to keep the moisture in. Cook until dove meat is tender – about 6 minutes on each side. Remove dove meat to a warm platter and serve with steaming rice.

Special Memories:  Dove season and calving season are at the same time (Fall for the Central Coast), so friends with their hunting license can hunt dove as they help check for new calves or pump water.

Here’s a guide for responsible hunting of Dove: The first column is the type of dove in California, then the hunting season followed by the limit.

Mourning Dove and White-winged Dove Statewide Sep 1 – 15 &
Nov 11 – Dec 25		 15, up to 10 of which may be white-winged doves Triple the daily bag
Spotted Dove, and Ringed Turtle Dove No limit
Eurasian Collared-dove All Year No limit
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Alice “Lorna” Grieb (Erickson)

Alice “Lorna” Grieb at 2 years

Alice “Lorna” Grieb was born at home on what is now Todd Lane in Arroyo Grande, California on February 25, 1926, the 7th of nine children (third daughter). In her early childhood she was often ill and missed a lot of school. Her parents often called the family doctor to make home visits. Eventually, she began to thrive and kept up with her 6 brothers quite well. Lorna was a tomboy and loved spending time more with her brothers than her two sisters. She loved to play outdoors and found it to be drudgery to be called into the kitchen for cooking and cleaning tasks. On Saturdays, she hiked, rode horseback to the beach or played in the creek on hot days. She enjoyed outings and camping trips with family. Lorna hated wearing shoes and one of her teachers once sent a note home to her mother saying that if the family couldn’t afford to buy her shoes that she would provide them. Her mother was very embarrassed!

Always the Animal Lover and the Crafter

She loved animals and always had a number of cats as pets. She dressed them in doll clothes, gave them buggy rides and told them all her troubles. You can imagine her consternation when her brother Carl, ever the entrepreneur, sold her new litter of kittens! She learned to sew at an early age (she says 2″“ grade) when she wanted a pair of shorts and took apart an old dress, cut out the shorts and sewed them up. Her mother was quite surprised at her ingenuity. She took knitting lessons in San Luis Obispo at Sinsheimers store and did so well that she was able to teach her mother how to knit also. She excelled in sewing and knitting all of her life. She made dance costumes for several nieces. She sewed beautiful wedding gowns and attendant dresses for her two daughters and a granddaughter and designed quilts and afghans for charity. As a young adult she developed a love of music and art. She took piano lessons and played the cello in the school orchestra. She was always drawing and sketching things in her notebooks.

Teen Years

Early Teen Years

As a teenager she attended dances on Saturday nights at the “rat races” in downtown Arroyo Grande, chaperoned, mostly by brothers Stan and Ted. It was at one of these dances at age 16 that she met Merriam Erickson, an army private stationed at Camp San Luis. They corresponded for several years after he was shipped overseas during World War II.

Lorna graduated from Arroyo Grande High School in June of 1944 and enrolled in San Luis Obispo Junior College majoring in Art.(at the time on the same campus as the San Luis Obispo High School). After a year she asked her parents to allow her to attend Woodbury College in Burbank, CA to further her study of art. Her parents finally approved and it was arranged when Merriam returned to California in 1946. So instead of completing college, she got married. A fact she at times lamented.

Early Married Years

Lorna in her early 20’s

Lorna and Merriam were married in her parent’s home on February 22, 1946. She was just three days shy of her 20th birthday. Merriam was 28. Merriam’s years in the army brought out the wandering spirit in him and throughout their marriage they had many adventures as they moved from place to place —Minnesota, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho. Lorna had two daughters Sandi Marie born July 1947 and Cyndy Jean born April 1954. During their growing up years she was a Camp Fire Girl leader, 4-H leader and church volunteer. Each and every day her life demonstrated how she valued her family. Lorna got her first job after her marriage in Bemidji, Minnesota working as a stock clerk in Woolworth’s. She had many temporary jobs over the years. Many of them seasonal, like picking berries in Oregon. At one time, she had a sewing business doing alterations and once worked in a bakery, which she loved. She was a school cafeteria cook and also a cook in a private treatment facility.

The Products of Her Hands

The best experience my sister and I had observing her work habits and ethics was when she spent many summers working cutting apricots for her dad and her brother Stan. She was a whiz at cutting apricots and cut more boxes by far than any of the other workers. A few years later when her brother Stan put together the apricot cutting machine my mom and Stan’s wife Lois were the first to test it out. It was quite something to see how well my mom did operating the new machine and how pleased her brother was. She was also a terrific worker during the walnut harvest, sorting walnuts as the nuts sped by on the conveyor belt. Her hands turned black from handling the walnut husks. Through the years she managed to improve her skills in various art forms——oil painting, egg tempura, sculpting, embroidery, needlepoint and quilting. She took two commercial art correspondence courses and did well, but the nomadic lifestyle at the time made pursuing a career in that field difficult. She excelled in making bread, pies and soups, winning many blue ribbons at fairs and baking contests. In her early 5O’s she designed and built a house in Atascadero, Ca. It seemed there was nothing she could not do —architecture, carpentry, electrical, plumbing. However, after a short time, she sold the house and moved in with her parents to care for them several years.

Retirement Years

When Merriam retired from Cal Poly in 1980, they moved to Citrus Heights CA to be closer to their two daughters. A short time later they bought property next door to her brother Jim and his wife Frankie in Mountain Ranch, near San Andreas, CA. Over the next year or so she developed blueprints for yet another house. This time a tri-level house with a wrap around deck. The project turned out to be especially challenging. She managed the whole construction project single-handedly as by that time Merriam was ill and developing symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Merriam’s brother Ole and nephew Ed came out from Minnesota for several months and laid the foundation and framed the house. This project was no easy feat requiring permits and inspection approvals, ordering building supplies, drilling a well and many other details. All this at age 62 while caring for an ailing husband. Eventually, the project was abandoned, the property sold.

Lorna and Merriam moved back to Sacramento and purchased a properly near daughter Sandi. Daughter Cyndy and husband moved in with Lorna and Merriam to be of support. In April 1994, Merriam was placed in an Alzheimer’s care facility where he stayed to the end of his life. After 49+ years of marriage Merriam passed away in 1995. Lorna struggled to heal emotionally from the loss of her husband and physically from a broken hip but continued to excel in all her artistic talents, making many one of a kind gifts for friends and family as well as donating quilts and knitted blankets to charity.

Back to Her Birthplace

Lorna with brother Stan on left and sister-in-law Lois in the middle.

In 2001 she happily moved from Sacramento to Arroyo Grande where she reconnected with friends and church family from years ago. She enjoyed hosting brunches, lunches, Bible Studies in her home. Feeding people delicious homemade food was one of the things she loved best. In 2002, she moved in with daughter Sandi to what is now the Grieb Farmhouse Inn—the original home of her grandparents Katharina and Konrad Grieb on Todd Lane. Always the giver, she preferred to remain in the background, never expecting recognition or acclaim. Her selflessness was a model for everyone who knew her. She always kept busy as a volunteer for the local food closet, Habitat for Humanity and various quilting guilds. She sewed projects for her church including the offering bags and the choir robes. The day was never complete unless she took time for herself to read, complete a crossword puzzle and enjoy a few good cups of hot, green tea. In the end, she was an inspiration to all her family and friends as she struggled daily with various forms of cancer. She never wavered in her faith and gratitude for a life well-lived. It is amazing that she was born and died within a 100 feet of each other. She is buried in the Arroyo Grande Cemetery with her husband Merriam Erickson and next to her son-in-law Floyd Ferrio. The same cemetery where her grandparents, parents and five siblings are buried. Our family stays together in life and death.

Alice Lorna Grieb Erikson – February 25, 1926 — September 2, 2013 – 87 years, 6 months, 8 days

Written by Sandi Ferrio