Hello everyone! We hope you are getting acclimated to the colder weather. Fall was nice while it lasted, wasn't it? These cold sunny days are beautiful.
We have an update on product availability for all of you. If you have visited the online store recently, you will have noticed a smaller assortment of products available to purchase; but, as promised, we will continue to provide fresh milk, as well as kefir, maple kefir, plain yogurt, and Diamond S Ranch burger, plus our cheeses and butter while they last, throughout the winter. There will also be something new to this list of products — please put your email address in the little box and subscribe to receive your blog in your inbox so you don't miss anything.  Mid December we will be sharing some NEW products that will be available.  

Don't forget it's time to get December's monthly order in.  When we have limited milk the monthly orders are filled before the  weekly orders.  We do our best to plan for all.  Happy Thanksgiving.  Blessings to all.

We pondered long and hard on letting you all know we would once again dry our cows up for a few months in the winter. Seems like as soon as we made the decision to do this, things happened to spur change, once again.  As you know, we experienced a noticeable decrease in milk production earlier this month, due to a couple of our milk cows really slacking off in their productivity. We are so sorry for not being able to offer some of our products and, at times, not being able to fill all the milk orders. Fortunately, the situation has now been eased, thanks to a surprise from Miss Sammy — a new calf! Her milk production has more than doubled, and she is more than willing to share the extra. This helps take up some of the slack created by the two slacker cows, but still does not totally provide all the milk we had become used to getting each day. As you can see from our store, we have omitted several products already for October, making sure we have plenty of milk, yogurt and kefir for our orders. With the news of our new arrival comes the change of plans for the winter dairy schedule. We can't give you an exact schedule yet, as we haven't had a moment to discuss how we are going to make our way  through part of November, December and part of January.  All we know right now is that we will possibly have three cows fresh all winter; Sammy for sure, and maybe two others. Please get your order in for October, and let us know your needs for the winter, including how many little ones depend on our milk. Cheese and butter are concentrated nutrition and store well for winter, and will be made as often as possible.  Our aging cave has about 62 pounds of our cheeses soon to be ready to cut/wrap and add to our store.  Our online store has less than 9 pounds left for sale right now.  Please, if you would like to store some of our cheeses for your winter needs, let us know in the notes. As soon as they are ready, your name will be on the top of our list.   We are doing our best and trying hard to keep up, and our online ordering has really helped.  Both of us get the orders online, hoping this will help keep us straight. Please let us know if we've missed something in your order. We really appreciate you all so much. We miss getting to see everyone and struggle to keep up with communication. With that said, anyone that hasn't visited our little Micro-Dairy is invited to respond in the comments and give us a few possible dates that might work for you to drive to Hyattville for a group tour and tasting. Come see what we do here at the Diamond S Ranch and Dairy! You can meet "the girls" that provide the milk for your dairy products.   

Diamond S Cheeses available:  
Cactus Jack -  two varieties aged 3-6 months.  The 6 month has a nutty flavor and is a bit crumbly; great added to green salad or pasta. The 3 month is easier to slice; serve on rye crisps or crackers with fruit or veggies.  Both are great additions to your cheese plate.  
Cold Springs Colby -  aged 4-5 months, and is some of the mildest cheese we offer, with great flavor. 
Good Ol’ Gouda - a washed curd cheese and this cheese has been aged nearly 90 days.
Cowboy Cheddar - aged 2- 4 months an all time favorite.  Each wheel is a little different.  We are trying more natural rind washing daily for the first month with a mildly salted whey brine then every other day until we package.  
Stout Cowboy Cheddar - aged 2 months but the soft curd is soaked in TS Brewery Whiskey Barrel Stout beer for 30 minutes then once in the cave wiped with the stout brine for 45 days. Will be packaged soon.
Cattle Kate Dream Cheese - Kefir drained and seasoned with herbs and packed in organic olive oil is loaded with probiotics, and keeps well in jars in the frig.  
Our cheeses keep for months or longer, if left sealed in the vacuum packed packages. Once opened use within a month, trimming as needed. 
All our raw milk cheeses are very similar in the fact all are made with A2/A2 cows milk (instead of a mix of different species, such as cow and sheep or cow and goat). Also, none of our raw milk cheeses ever have coloring added to them.  
Raw cheese abounds in enzymes that help to digest the fats and proteins. Cheeses are excellent carriers of probiotics — Their low acidity and high fat preserve and nurture the bacteria while they move through the digestive system. Cheeses that are probiotic rich are aged and made from raw, unpasteurized milk. 
Coming next week is a new page to our store: GRASS FED AND FINISHED DIAMOND S BEEF.  Pictured here on summer mountain pasture.

                                            Winter on the ranch

Mr. Asher's first book The Art of Natural Cheesemaking was published in 2015, he has taken his methods and taught around the world.  So very thankful I could attend this amazing class.  
Fresh Mozzarella this week text for sizes if you are interested in having some delivered.  You will also get a sample of the string cheese pictured above!
Orders for August due!

Older ones should respect the energy of youths and youths should respect the experience of older ones. — Amit Kalantri (with a slight edit from Linda)

This week we are giving a shout-out to our "girls of summer"! Skylar and Kasey have been wonderful help at the dairy this summer. Early each morning, the team arrives to work hard at doing what must be done in order to produce all of the yummy products made available to our customers. Kasey does the milking and other outdoor chores, while Skylar works to get the daily chores inside done, as well as start the process of making whatever product(s) is on the make-schedule for the day. Together with Kris, they have made an incredible amount of dairy product this summer. Both girls are learning the science of cheesemaking (as well as the other dairy products) quickly and well. 
Skylar states that she has really enjoyed all there is to learn about cheesemaking, feeling she has a much better understanding of it now, as compared to when she helped Kris in the dairy when she was just a youngster.
Kasey says she has enjoyed the learning process, also, as well as her time with the cows, each of them having their own personality. 
I think it's safe to say, it has been a summer of the young learning from the older, and the older appreciating the energy of the youth, counting many blessings daily. 
p.s. Monthly orders need to be in!!  Thank you!

          Shown above: Diamond S cattle trailing to a different pasture.

Excitement is in the air here in the Hyattville area! The annual Cowboy Carnival will once again take place at the Community Center, offering a fun-filled day for all. There will be no pie contest this year, but there is still a need for plenty of pies to top off the BBQ lunch that will be served. 
So, here's the deal — if you bring a pie to the Cowboy Carnival to donate as part of the BBQ lunch being served, Diamond S Dairy will include a free 12 oz. package of Bunkhouse Butter in your first-week-of-June order. What a deal, eh!! (Please do not bring any cream pies or pies with meringue.)
— We are also offering a deal on our cheese curds, which are available in three different flavors - Ranch, Spicy, or Salt & Pepper. A single, 10 oz package costs $8.00. Here's the deal — try all three for $15.00. Can't go wrong with that!
Cottage cheese will be available for orders going out the second week of June. Lemon yogurt will be available for orders going out the third week of June. Greek yogurt (two flavors - lemon curd and blueberry) will be available for orders going out the fourth week of June. Please tell us what flavor you want in the "notes" section when you order.

June orders are due now! 
Hope to see you all at the Cowboy Carnival this Sunday. More information about it can be found at these links:
Facebook - Hyattville Community Center   
                             -or-
https://www.hyattville.org/cowboy-carnival.html