Hello everyone! We hope your summer has been filled with lots of adventures. We've been busy on the Ranch. Can't believe it's almost October. Here's something to think about when placing the next few months orders....

Winter will be here before you know it. Preserving your milk for winter is a great sustainable way to prepare when milk production lessens. You can freeze your milk or dehydrate the milk. Both methods maintain the nutrional value of your "liquid gold". It's a Win Win!!

Through the end of November we will have plenty of milk to order extra. During December and January our production changes. We will only have milk for sale. So, ask us to help you with grains for making your own kefir. We also have yogurt starter. At home yogurt making is tons of fun. We're here to help with your homesteading needs.

A few things we are working on to prepare for winter is making sauerkraut. Kaptains Kraut and Red Zinger will be ready at the end of September. Plus watch for more beef bundles in October. We have five yogurt starters to give away that includes our famous recipe. Text 307-272-5334 if you're interested.

Because of 3 cows freshening in late July and early August we will again be milking year around. However, monthly orders are strongly encouraged to help with our planning.
Returning bottles every week is crucial for us to continue providing and delivering our products to your family. We appreciate your help. 

Dehydrated  Milk Recipe
Dehydrated milk, or powdered instant milk, can be purchased in just about any grocery, but do we know what's in it? The powdered milk from a prepper store’s long-term food storage section will have a life of up to about 20 years – that’s basically 18 years longer than grocery store powdered milk will last. Dehydrated milk cost less to store than freezing it and if you lose power you never have to worry about your milk going bad. Either way of preserving is fine. You may find having a combination of the two methods fits your lifestyle best.

Although many folks do not think it's possible, you can dehydrate milk at home without the needs for extremely expensive equipment.

Dehydrating any dairy product is often thought too arduous a task, but we have not found it difficult at all to successfully dehydrate sour cream, cottage cheese, cheese, and even milk in a low cost under $150 dehydrator.

To dehydrate milk you will need some of the plastic dehydrating trays. Known as fruit roll-up trays to put on each tray row of your machine. We use the same sheets when dehydrating other forms of dairy as well as delicate herbs and spices.

Simply place an insert into each dehydrator tray and slowly pour one cup of milk onto each. If your kitchen cabinet is a bit un-level and you never noticed, you will find that out quickly as the milk fills the trays.

Setting options vary on different home dehydrating machines. We use the fruit and vegetable setting (it's about 135 degree setting)

Dehydrating four to five trays of milk will take approximately 12 hours. The power output of dehydrators vary. Your machine could complete the process in as few as 10 or as many as 12 hours. The more trays stacked in the dehydrator the longer it will take.

We recommend dehydrating just two trays the first time you work with milk to better determine the temperature and time settings required on your dehydrator. Check the milk trays by lifting the top off of the machines and carefully lifting up each tray individually to review your progress about six to eight hours in. If you see the milk is browning....your temperature is set too high. Lower the temperature by 5-10 degrees

The milk will harden and crack into multiple pieces as it dries. When it's done it will feel like a thin piece of peanut brittle. Once the milk has dried remove the flaky pieces from the tray and place them into your blender or food processor to gently pulse into a powder. This compacts which saves room in your storage container for a better air tight seal.

Reconstituting Dehydrated Milk

It takes approximately 13 to15 teaspoons of dehydrated milk powder to equal one cup of reconstituted milk. We suggest to mix together one Tablespoon of warm to hot water with 13 teaspoons of milk powder to make one liquid cup of milk. If the consistency of your batch still seems more sludge than real milk, add more warm to hot water in ½ teaspoon increments until you achieve the consistency you desire.

Our team knows you're enjoying the fruits of our labor and want to ensure you continue to. We strive to do our best to provide you with healthy food alternatives.

From our Family to yours,

Kris, Maddie and Steph.

We hope you all enjoyed your Sampler Basket the first week of May.  Thank you Deb for the idea.  We will do that again sometime.  Hope your sampler cheese plate looked something like the picture.  We had fun creating ours!

Cowboy Carnival is May 28th.  Please join us at the Hyatville Community Center for a day of family fun and good food.  No pie contest again but yes there will be pie and ice-cream for desert following the delicious -BQ meal.  This year if you bring a pie your name will be put in a drawing and you will have a chance of winning a Goodie Basket donated by Diamond S Raw Milk Dairy.  Three baskets containing at least 3 of our hand crafted cheeses, cultured butter and some handy kitchen items plus flavored vinegar from the Cody Kitchen Store will be given to the winners. Also a large cheese and goodie board will be in the auction.  Please come join the fun over Memorial Weekend on Sunday in Hyattville 5/28/2023 ALL DAY.

This is three of 7 lawn ornaments we had in the yard for a couple weeks making sure all five calves got enough to eat from the two nurse cows.  All are doing great.  Many of you visiting the dairy had to duck under or open our blue twine gate to retrieve your dairy delights from the ranch store.  Thank you for your patience.  

This month we encourage everyone to get to know where your food is grown, and cared for.  Come meet the rancher or farmer and learn and see where your food comes from. Let's encourage all our friends and families to gather a group and take tours with teachers and parents.  Set up a time at Diamond S Ranch to taste, and tour ask questions and meet the folks that care for the animals and produce the products you see in our store.  There are many small business owners out there since the food freedom act was passed in March of 2015.  We welcome everyone here at Diamond S Ranch.  Make an appointment for your whole school or several grades, or home schooling group for a tour. COME TASTE AND LEARN.  

Well, our winter hiatus from milking ended February 28th, which was  four days after we (Gene & Kris) returned from a three week vacation. On our return, we were thinking we had a good three weeks at home to catch up on things left undone. Things got busy fast around here as calving season got underway, and our three weeks of "catch up" weren't as productive as we had hoped.  Organizing, we have decided, comes very slowly when you are busy!  We are always thankful, though, and count our blessings daily. 
   That being said, we here at the dairy want you to know what a huge blessing monthly orders are to us. We would like to thank all of you who have now become accustomed to placing monthly orders, and we encourage those who are still ordering weekly to consider ordering monthly. If you order monthly and later in the month find a need or wish for an additional product, you can always get online and order the additional product as a weekly order.  We can not express how much monthly orders help us with our production plans for all of the different dairy products we offer. And, that all trickles down to putting orders together and having products ready to go out the door in a timely fashion. We currently plan and shop and produce for around 50 families weekly that are shopping our online store and picking up their products; and, our client list grows each week. Our main goal is to make sure all the kids have the raw milk they need, and then we plan for the other dairy delights we will  create after all the milk orders are accounted for. We try hard to provide the products you want; monthly orders make doing so much less stressful and more enjoyable. Monthly orders for May were due this past Sunday a.m. (the 23rd), but we are hoping more of you will jump on the "monthly order band wagon" and get a monthly order placed now. The deadline to get this done is 6 a.m., Sunday, April 30th. Thank you all for your help in this matter.

SPECIAL - Product Alert:

• CHEESE CURDS:  We know many of you have already placed your order for May.  If you would like to add CHEESE CURDS, order them today.  We made a big batch yesterday.  Three flavors:  

1. Fire Ball
2. Mediterranean
3. Salt and Pepper                             ONE for $8; THREE for $20

• BEEF BUNDLES $35 each:  Winter is over but we finally got our BONES back in stock, and would like to offer 7 BEEF BUNDLES for $35 each.  Each bundle will have a value of not less than $50 and contain 2 or 3 packages of burger 80/20.  2 to 4 lbs Meaty Soup bones, 2 lbs stew meat, plus 5-8 pounds of dog bones.  Order today.  First come first served.

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​​Lemon yogurt - Your win! The high demand for this yummy dairy treat has prompted us to now produce it weekly, instead of just once a month as long as we can. It is now available in two sizes. This week we may add strawberry/lemon, or blueberry/lemon.  These will be added to each drop location $3 each.  Pick up an extra to give it a try and let us know your thoughts.
        Note: As with all of our products, we strive to make our lemon yogurt as healthy as possible. This means there will be lemon zest (finely grated lemon rind) only in the batches of yogurt made with organic lemons. Sometimes we are unable to purchase organic; in which case, we do not use any of the lemon rind/peel. Pesticides don't penetrate the wonderful protective rind, so we use the pulp and juice from non-organic lemons, but not the rind. This little bit of information about lemon rinds and pesticides is what keeps LEMONS off of the "Dirty Dozen" list. For more information about the Dirty Dozen" list, visit https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php. The list changes yearly.
 
​(We appreciate the feedback about our products. Keep telling us what you like, such as the lemon yogurt, and what you don't like. And remember to  get those orders in early.)

Early mornings spent at the dairy barn provide time to enjoy the baby calves and their mamas, and of course our barn cats, Alex and Tiger. Time spent with the animals, in general, can bring a person down to earth, making you mindful of all of your blessings, and bringing a smile as things fall into perspective. Working with our last heifer calves of the season is time that allows for this. The task involves haltering, leading, and lots of petting to get them used to the barn and being messed with. (Nasty work, but someone's got to do it.)  :-)  This process is done for a few weeks, and then they are turned out into the pasture to grow and be cows.  We will have the last two calves in for only two more weeks, so if any of you haven't had the chance to bring the kids out, you had better do it this week or next. We invite everyone to the ranch to get to know a bit about our dairy operation, let the kids see and pet or lead the calves, and taste our products. Spot, Sweet Pea, and Precious love to be scratched and petted!
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​Again thank you all for your support and getting your orders in online and on time.  If you struggle with the online ordering, please don't hesitate to come to the ranch to get help. We will gladly assist in setting up your account and making it user friendly for you.  The technical part of the little tiny dairy is the hardest for Kris, but she will point you to another part of the team that will fix you right up. Our IT specialist is willing to help us all.

Our little team knows you all appreciate the time and effort we put into providing you with healthy dairy products. This means using organic herbs, fruits, and vegetables. It means taking care to keep our fresh milk at its peak, and keeping the dairy and all of the equipment we use clean. And, it means raising happy, healthy cows and calves. After all, that's where it all begins! We will continue to do our best, and want you to know we appreciate all of you.
​Kris, Maddie & Linda

Hello everybody! Pre-orders have mostly been picked during the last three weeks of March, or edited to fit the clients needs for April. If you haven't touched base with us yet, please do so soon.
April orders were due 3/26/2023. THIS HAS BEEN EXTENDED ONE WEEK TO APRIL 2ND, 6 AM. If we haven't received your order by then, your late order will be filled as we have milk to fill it, or possibly moved to the second week in April. Please go to our online store today and get your order placed. We need time to plan our week ahead.
To help keep our operation running smoothly, each client needs to purchase and provide us twice the number of jars as you get of milk. For example - If you order/receive one jar of milk, you need to bring us two empty jars with your first pick up. Please be sure the jars have black plastic, one-piece lids on them. These lids can be found at Bloedorn Lumber in Worland. Please bring them back clean (checking the threads on jar and the lid). We can then sanitize the jars and lids much quicker. 
Please don't hesitate to call and ask questions.
Thank you to all who have come to the ranch, met the girls who are producing your healthy dairy products, and walked thru our modest, but efficient operation. It helps to assure me that all the work is worth it. The service we provide is reaching many families, with new ones reaching out every week.
Our first cow calved on February 28th, and we've been hard at it making cheese and butter to get our inventory restocked.

The picture was shared by a new client who found the easy-pour lids and the silicone sleeves on Amazon. The sleeve helps to keep the bottle from slipping out of your hands. These two items are something you and your family might like. Please don't return lids like this to the ranch you may loose them.  Keep those handy ones at home. 

                        Normandy color shined thru on this little bull calf.

I hope you  noticed the website is live again.  Yes today we are taking orders to be picked up beginning on the 30th of March.  HOWEVER we have several cows that are first calf heifers so it takes lots of exta time getting them used to coming in the barn to be milked, and lots of time to figure out how much milk they will give after the calf gets all the good colostrum.  Start up will be with fewer products for a couple weeks. Waiting on two more cows to freshen.  We are share milking 2, have 3 dedicated nurse cows, and 2 so far dedicated to just milking.    The next couple weeks are so very special as the calves are small enough to handle them easily.  Bring your family and meet the gang. 
Mar 30-31 at the ranch - Milk, butter, cultured buttermilk, yogurt and kefir.
Apr 6 -7  - Same as above plus LEMON YOGURT
Apr 13-14  - Same plus DREAM CHEESE
Apr 20-21 - Same plus Marinated Feta

Let me know if you will drive once per month from the ranch to your town!
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The milk cows are calving! We have three calves, so far. That means there is some milking going on. So, starting about March 19th, we will have a small amount of milk to share on a first come, first served basis. You must be willing to come to the dairy to pick it up. Please let us know if you are interested. Also, if anyone is willing to help with our regular deliveries when we get rolling again, please step forward. It would be greatly appreciated. We hope you all had a great winter, and have an even better spring!