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Family Camp Memories

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As summer draws to a close, it brings to mind memories of the wonderful care-free days we spent at our private family camp. Cattle grazed lazily in the pastures, a creek flowed by huge sycamore and willow trees.

The campsite itself had our grandmother’s unique touch. She probably invented the first outdoor kitchen. There was a tall, green camp cupboard to store supplies, a table for food preparation, a large picnic table, a spot in the creek for keeping perishables cold.

Our grandparents had “luxury” sleeping arrangements, a large tent erected over a wooden floor complete with cast iron bed and chest of drawers. The rest of us slept in our own tents or nestled our sleeping bags together on the ground under the stars. We didn’t seem to mind the hard ground.

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Grandpa Fred Grieb with Grandkids.

The camp gathering was unique and special bringing together our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins as many as 40-50 at once. Lots of laughter and fun. Cousins played in the creek in inner tubes or rowed back and forth in the rowboat, fished for trout, played kick-the-can or hide and seek. Adults lazed back with a good book or played cards and shared all the family news.

The great cooks, with our grandma in charge, prepared meals that were fabulous from breakfast to dinner. We feasted on homemade family recipes. Evening campfires with storytelling, roasting marshmallows and popcorn ended perfect days of togetherness.

The best part of it all was the family closeness we experienced; a feeling of belonging and being a part of something very special. What in life is better than that?

Written by Sandi Ferrio the owner the Grieb Farmhouse Inn.  Her mother was Lorna Grieb Erickson

1 John 4:7 “Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God. Every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.”

Grandpa Fred Grieb enjoyed fishing.

Grandpa Fred Grieb enjoyed fishing.

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Grieb Ranch Farms in Japan

With the T family

This summer, Stan Willems of the Grieb Ranch experienced a great opportunity to visit Japan. Grieb Ranch has maintained a connection to a Japanese dairy farming family since the 1980’s. This summer’s opportunity started with a student travel conference in Tokyo, Japan. Stan then traveled north to visit with the Japanese family on their small farm that raises feed for its dairy herd near the northern village of Mogami near Shinjo.

Map of Japan with Tokyo and to North, Shinjo.
Stan enjoyed riding the Bullet Train which travels up to 200 miles per hour.

Dairy farming output in Japan has increased in the last decade as the Japanese diet has changed and includes more dairy products. Japan has limited land and is very mountainous making agriculture production challenging. Only 12% of the total land mass is available for agriculture and most of that is for rice farming. The northern island of Hokkaido, with its colder climate and larger farm size is the primary area for dairy farming. The products from Hokkaido are primarily used for dairy products. Dairy farms closer to the major cities produce most of the fresh milk that Japanese drink. Japanese dairy herds are small compared to the US, with an average herd size of 50 head.

Grieb Ranch shirts

Grieb Ranch shirts in Japan.

Stan stayed with fellow farming friends at Rocky Ridge Farms near the village of Mogami which is located North of Tokyo. There he spent a few days plowing and tilling for a future crop, repaired some stairs, and checked out the local agriculture production in nearby, Shinjo. This farm stay was the highlight of the trip as he reconnected this friendship which began in the 1980’s.

Stan fixed these stairs at the Rocky Ridge Farm.

Stan fixed these stairs at the Rocky Ridge Farm.

Click these links for more information on Agriculture production and Dairy farming in Japan.

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Play Days and Playdough: Making Squishy-Fun Memories

Squishy fun memories
Our home at Grieb Ranch is a ways from town. So through the years when making something squishy-fun from playdough was our chosen entertainment, we made our own playdough. The tradition continues as play days with Grandma are often spent making more squishy-fun memories with home-made playdough. Here is our recipe:

Kool Dough for Kids

2 ½ C Flour
1 T Cream of Tartar
2 Pkgs of Koolaid (gives it color)
1 C Salt
2 C Boiling Water
3 T Oil

Directions: Combine dry ingredients. Add oil to water and mix well with dry ingredients. Knead as cools until smooth. A Kitchen-Aid mixer with the paddle attachment pulls this recipe together very fast. Store for future fun in a ziplock bag.

P intent on making playdough animals

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Rebuilding The Paulding Wall: Arroyo Grande History

Finished wallHumpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Well Humpty Dumpty didn’t sit on the Paulding wall on East branch Street in Arroyo Grande, but that wall did fall and has been in disrepair for decades. The Paulding wall is a retaining wall that keeps the land, that Paulding Middle School rests on, from spilling onto East Branch Street as one enters or leaves the village of Arroyo Grande. Paulding Middle School is the former site of Crown Hill High School. Carl Grieb attended High School at Crown Hill and Connie Willems has taught and tutored Jr. High students at Paulding for 30 years.

Works Progress Adm signA sign near the wall shows that it was originally built in 1940 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) a New Deal program that put unemployed, unskilled people to work on public projects. WPA was involved in several projects in the the Crown Hill neighborhood. The wall began to crumble as much as 40 years ago and the city of Arroyo Grande never mustered the funds to fix it.

Men's Club signThank goodness for the Arroyo Grande Men’s Club who found some individuals to take on the project and raised funds to see it happen. The wall repair began the beginning of June 2015 and looks like it should be finished here soon.

The original rocks from the first wall were removed and retained and in their place a cement retaining wall was built. The original rocks have been cemented as a veneer face to the cement retaining wall.

Construction has confined the traffic driving by the wall on East Branch and forced tight negotiation around the turn as less room is available. This is most difficult for larger tractor-trailer rigs which need a wide turning radius. Thankfully drivers have been cautious and courteous as they drive by and patiently wait for the unveiling of the new and improved wall, re-built by local citizens.

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Hardware Disease: Goodbye Tonka

Tonka Grand ChampionConnie’s favorite cow, Tonka, died last week. She was a favorite because Ethan showed her at the Santa Barbara County Fair in 2011 and she was the Grand Champion Heifer that year. Adele, this year’s Reserve Champion was out of her. Ethan still proudly wears the Grand Champion buckle he received.

IMG_2002Recently, Tonka was acting strange and losing weight. So she was brought down from the hills and put in a pen for observation. There were signs of something as a lump under her jaw had developed. She was checked for woody tongue but that was not it. Her brisket started to enlarge which indicated “Hardware Disease”. A “Bounty Hunter” metal detector was used to determine if there was any metal in her.

Cattle are not discriminant eaters and frequently swallow bits of metal and nails and parts of fencing as they graze the hillside. These metal pieces accumulate in a chamber of the stomach called the reticulum which is also near the heart. The metal pieces can puncture through and impact the heart or cause infection throughout the body. Yes indeed the “Bounty Hunter” lit up which meant that she had metal in her. The detector also saved time during the autopsy as it showed where the metal was. Metal pieces had settled in several places in her body and one had caused an abscess.

Bounty Hunter was used to find the metal in Tonka’s body.
Magnet that is placed in the cow to attract metal pieces.
Magnet pulled from Tonka with metal pieces attached.

Tonka had a magnet placed in her several years ago to help prevent this disease by attracting the metal pieces all in one place. However her magnet stopped working as a coating grew on it and it no longer held or attracted metal pieces. Above is a pic of the magnet that was pulled out of her body. Note several metal pieces that stayed attached to it.

FullSizeRender(1)When a cow dies what happens to the body? There are several options. One, is to call the Tallow works and they come out and pick up the animal. Two, is dig a big hole and bury the animal. Three, leave it out in the hills and let the buzzards, bears and bugs do a fast job of making the carcass disappear.

Goodbye Tonka. Thank you for leaving your legacy with Grieb Ranch.

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A Day In The Life at Grieb Ranch

A day in the life of Grieb Ranch

A day in the life at Grieb Ranch. We were out gathering cattle at Grieb Ranch, recent rain stimulated the grass to emerge; giving a hint of green, the morning was clear and we could see to the ocean. The cattle were making their way back to our main area . . . we turned to see that it was just another beautiful day on Grieb Ranch. We were thankful.

Yes the recent storm dumped enough water to allow Connie to skip watering for a week. However the hay stacks got wet, and the moisture caused the grass seeds to germinate but without regular watering the grass will die and not re-germinate. Yet we are thankful. Even when the rain actually can leach out the nutrients in the grass which then provides less feed value to the cows, we are still thankful.

PSALM 121

1I lift up my eyes to the mountains—

where does my help come from?

2My help comes from the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

3He will not let your foot slip—

he who watches over you will not slumber;

4indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

5The Lord watches over you—

the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

6the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night.

7The Lord will keep you from all harm—

he will watch over your life;

8the Lord will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.

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Fair Fun and Friends

Ethan and RH 2015

Ethan and his Replacement Heifer ready for the Santa Barbara County Fair 2015.

Last week Grieb Ranch was off to the Santa Barbara County Fair. Grandpa Grieb stayed home and manned the ranch while the rest were working and well yes, playing, at the fair. Along with all the animal supplies many other things had to be brought and set up on site: the stall decorations, the blocking chute, the travel trailer to sleep in and the Replacement heifer to show. First on the fair agenda is the pregnancy test – if the heifer is not pregnant she can’t be shown. Next is the showmanship class followed by the breed judging class. All these classes set up the animals for the auction on Friday of fair week. Every day during the week the animals are groomed, fed, watered and of course the cow stall is mucked several times a day. All free time is spent hanging with fair friends and doing fair activities like the rides.

Wow! One of the Replacement heifers from Grieb Ranch and shown and worked with by our friend Katie Howell was Reserve Champion FFA Replacement Heifer and Local Bred Reserve Champion! These awards are a Grieb Ranch first! Katie started working with “Adele” shortly after she was born out at Grieb Ranch.

Extra excitement this year came from the sky as thunder, lightning and pouring rain caused all participants to run for cover and resulted in a mandatory evacuation of the camp trailer area on Sunday morning. Imagine the chaos as hundreds of rigs were tying to get out of there at once. July is typically one of the driest here on the Central Coast so to get a rain storm like this in July during a drought was truly unexpected.

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Ol’ Red

old red beforeboot holding cloth 2Grieb Ranch folks got out the rubber boots last week . . . not because it rained, but because they needed the boots to hold down the drop cloth as they painted the house. Next on the paint gun agenda was Ol’ Red.Painting red 2

Ol’ Red has been a fixture of Grieb Ranch since the 1970’s and has been places that some people only dream of going. It could spin quite a yarn if it were able. The first time Connie drove home from the Santa Maria fair by herself pulling a trailer, it was Ol’ Red that she pulled.

Another memory takes place in the back country off Hwy 166 where Connie was sent to pick up a wild cow. Ol’ Red gave her quite the scare when she ventured down a steep hill the trailer started to pass her. Turns out the trailer brakes weren’t working! Yikes. She had to wait for some cowboys to rope Ol’ Red and keep it in place while someone else drove the truck into a safer place and set the trailer back behind the truck.

Flap, Flap, Flap the sound came from the trailer recently as Connie was hauling heifers from the hills into the lower corral. Connie stopped and checked the trailer and found the tread coming off one of the wheels. She was able to wind the truck and trailer down the hill to the lower corrals still fully loaded with the flap, flap, flap sound continuing. Once on the flat lower section the heifers were unloaded and then began the fun process of changing out the tire in a bit of an unconventional way . . . a tractor was used as a jack! Little P witnessed this tire change and quickly started practicing the method on his own. Ethan was also available to lend a hand and some muscle using the lug wrench to remove the bad tire.

Using the Tractor as a Jack
Little P practices using a tractor as a jack.

So with a new tire came new paint, but not just paint, Ol’ Red also got new mats on the replaced floor and rust converter as an undercoat. Ol’ Red is still red – quite RED – and shines with its new coat ready to take on new adventures for Grieb Ranch.

Old red with new paint full pic 2

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“Mr. T” a Stalwart Teacher of Kids at Ag Adventure Camp

3 boys and a horse (960x825)

We just spent most of the past two weeks teaching kids about Agriculture and God’s creation at Ag Adventure Camp put on by the Apela Foundation. What a joy it is to watch the delight in the girls and boys faces when they ride for the first time, or hold a chick, or milk a goat or experience God’s handiwork and beauty.

Mr T waits to be groomedOne of our Grieb Ranch horses, “Mr T” has been a stalwart participant in giving kids the opportunity to ride for the past four Ag Adventure Camps. Most kids have never been on a horse prior to camp and most are excited. First-timers approach the horse a bit gingerly as the closer they get the more they realize the size and power of the creature. However, as they ride they discover the joy of helping this powerful yet timid-by-nature creature negotiate around the arena.

Sam Savitt horse story author and artist sums up the horse perfectly,

“He is in some ways, a paradox of nature. Because of his size it is difficult to realize that he is a timid creature, quick to fright and flight. Yet he can be taught to gallop into the thick of artillery fire, ford a flooded river, endure head-on collisions of the polo field, and face a maddened steer, or jump a course of the most formidable obstacles you’ve ever seen. He has a simple one-track mind, but he possesses a terrific memory.”

Mr T teaches ridingWe help our Ag Adventure campers understand how a horse thinks and reacts and teach them to guide a horse using their eyes, sitting up straight and using a giving hand. In a given Ag Adventure Camp week Mr. T might have as many as 32 new riders. He keeps going along and doing his best to follow each rider’s instructions as the riders learn how to guide him around the arena and around the poles.

Mr. T came to the Grieb Ranch four years ago just before the second year of Ag Adventure camp. He was purchased from a ranch in Texas. Grieb Ranch uses him to round up the cattle in the hills and for regular riding around the ranch. He is a 10 year old, sorrel color, registered Quarter Horse. Mr T has a full registered name, CTR Peptos Surfine, which is a bit difficult to remember and because he has a brand near his left stifle which is a circle surrounding the letter T – Mr.T is the name we use.Mr T's brand

We enjoy Mr T and are thankful that he continues to give the Ag Adventure kids memories of riding that they will treasure for a life-time.Kids with Mr. T saddled

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Ag Adventure Fruit Pizza

Ag Adventure Fruit Pizza

Ag Adventure Fruit Pizza

We just finished up the Girl’s week of Ag Adventure Camp and one of the foods they made was Fruit Pizza. Not only was this a hit for the girls, it also got rave reviews from the volunteer staff. The Fruit Pizza boasts a sweet, crumbly crust, a slightly-sweet, creamy filling and is topped with the freshest fruits of the season. Since we live on the Central Coast Strawberries are a must!

The recipe is super easy – so easy we made it in a barn!

Cutting up Strawberries
Ag Adventure Fruit Pizza
Enjoy!

Ag Adventure Fruit Pizza
From the Kitchen of: Connie Grieb Willems                    Servings: 16

Ingredients:

Crust:
1 18 oz package refrigerated sugar cookie dough, softened

Filling:
1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
4 tablespoon powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla

Topping:
1/2 cup peach preserves
1 cup fresh strawberries, stemmed and sliced
2 kiwifruit, peeled and sliced
2 peaches, pitted, peeled and sliced
Whip Cream

Directions:

Crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Shape cookie dough into ball and place dough in center of round stone or pizza pan. Using lightly-floured rolling pin, roll out dough to 12-inch circle or fill a rectangle pan, about ¼ inch thick. Bake 18-20 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool Completely

Filling: Combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla in small bowl; mix well. Spread mixture evenly onto top of cookie crust then top with preserve.

Topping: Remove stems and slice strawberries (an egg slicer works well).  Peel and slice peaches and kiwi fruit, or your favorite fruits and arrange over preserves to cover entire crust. Pipe whipped cream topping around edge of fruit pizza. Cut into slices with a pizza cutter.