Stories from California Cattle Country

A visit with Loren Poncia of Stemple Creek Ranch in Tomales and Eric Miller of V. Miller Meats a Sacramento Butcher that has carried Stemple Creek beef since opening 7 years ago. 

Today we bring you our first visit from a dairy. New Hope dairy is located in Galt CA about a mile off of Highway 99.  We recorded this episode in a walk n talk style with owner Arlin and his son Kale. We were introduced to the ranch by Arlin's teenage son, Kale who spoke on what he likes about working on a dairy and then talk to Arlin about nutrition, the dairy's history, and his feelings on succession or how to approach being a dairy farmer with the next generation - his children.

In this episode we start with an April interview with the 3 Flournoy brothers Billy, Dave and John all 4th generation ranchers in Likely where they provide a bit of ranch history and illustrate the importance of the ranch cookhouse. We then meet Jessica, the new cookhouse cook and end the episode with a bit of Cowboy Poetry by Sunny Hancock and recited by Billy Flournoy.


See photos and videos from Likely Land and Livestock at https://calcattlecouncil.org/likely.

In this episode we visit the Likely Land & Livestock Company in Modoc County. We speak with 5th generation rancher Myles Flournoy about the ranch's multigenerational history and about Treasure Island, which is a boneyard of old ranch vehicles some of which fell victim to Myles and his brother Dan's creative driving. Their uncle Dave who runs the ranch's auto shop refers to Treasure Island as his parts department.

There's an old adage by comdeian W.C. Fields which says to never work with children or animals. This podcast regualrly works with the latter and in this episode we decided to attempt the former by interviewing Chesley Tipton, a 6 year old hand at Maddalena Ranch. Despite his youth Chesley is an experienced cowboy and helps his parents, Joe and Annie run their ranch in Sierra Valley managing cattle and over 575 acres. Sierraville is located in Sierra County, has a population of 85 and is about 25 miles north of Truckee.

We sat down and met the Dorrance family to discuss the ranch's history, the River Fire and the hustle that is securing the future of the ranch for the next generation. 

In this episode, our first episode, we visit Koopmann ranch in Sunol, Ca. we tour the ranch with Tim Koopmann a 3rd generation rancher and discuss how Koopmann ranch has been sustained for over 100 years while navigating the federal inheritance tax and how a small salamander among other vulnerable species helped save his ranch from insolvency. 

We later sit down with Tim's son and Daughter in law, Clayton & Natalie Koopmann to discuss the future of the ranch and their newly formed retail operation. 

Then we make them some burgers.