Marcia Barinaga’s kitchen table is covered with skeins made from the sheep she has raised on her ranch. Her meticulous care of the animals, and her concern for their happiness and welfare, are clear when she reaches tenderly to each skein. Her face lights up as she names from memory which of them produced each colored bundle of yarn—charcoal grey, Aurora and Scarlett; white, Pearl and Chuck; pale gray, Scout and Maureen; black, Soot and Smoke; slate grey, Olive and Fog.
Marcia and her husband, Corey Goodman, decided to become sheep ranchers in 2001 after they purchased an 800-acre Marin Agricultural Land Trust-protected ranch from the Barboni family in Marshall. (The Barbonis continue to graze cattle on the property.) They explored different agricultural possibilities for the land, including growing strawberries, but nothing excited them until a University of California Cooperative Extension advisor suggested they make cheese from sheep milk. Marcia, of Basque heritage, was instantly intrigued.
As teenagers, Marcia’s grandparents immigrated to Idaho from the Basque Country of northern Spain. After a few years working as a sheepherder, her grandfather became a partner on a ranch and eventually saved enough money to take complete ownership. Her grandparents worked side by side to manage their herd of 1,000 sheep, which they sold for wool and meat. Each year in late winter, they lambed 5,000 ewes on the high desert near the Idaho-Nevada border. During lambing season, they lived in a tent (for a couple of years with three children under age 5) and her grandmother cooked for the entire crew three times a day. The stories of how hard her grandparents worked and of her father’s continuing relationship with his Basque family registered deeply with Marcia.
Marcia was raised in Schenectady, N.Y., where her father was an engineer for General Electric. He was fluent in Basque, and his job required him to frequently work at the steel mills in Bilbao, Spain. As a result, he was able to reconnect and spend intimate time with their Basque relatives, maintaining a relationship with three generations. Marcia traveled to Spain several times while she was growing up. Although she doesn’t speak Basque, she studied Spanish in school, and she remains connected to her Basque cousins today.
Marcia’s intellect and previous careers were advantageous to her ranch life and had earlier prompted her move to California. After graduating with a degree in biology and environmental studies from Bowdoin College, she interned at the City of Hope cancer institute near Los Angeles and obtained her doctoral degree in biology from the University of California, San Diego. She researched molecular biology at the Salk Institute and did postdoctoral research at Stanford. During this time, she discovered she enjoyed science writing more than research. She went on to study science journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and spent the next 20 years writing for Science and Nature Magazines, specializing in neuroscience and West Coast policy stories. Her love of writing is evident in her website posts that vividly describe life on the ranch.
When Marcia and Corey bought their land, the infrastructure consisted of a cross fence and a pond. They built fences across the property and the first buildings they finished were the barn and housing for the team who help care for the sheep, Lolo Cortez and Melinda Bower. (Lisa Radke, another worker, lives nearby.) The creamery was built out of shipping containers. For milk for their cheese, they started with 25 East Friesian ewes, known for the high quality and quantity of milk they produce, and they eventually expanded to a herd of 100.
To learn cheese making, Marcia took classes and, with Corey and her father, travelled to the Basque Country, where her cousins were thrilled about her decision to carry on the cheesemaking tradition. The cousins introduced them to numerous shepherds (some of whom were family members) who taught Marcia how to make cheese.
On the ranch, Marcia developed and produced two award-winning, handcrafted Basque-style cheeses: a four-to-five-pound, six-month-aged tomme named Baserri after the traditional Basque stone and wood buildings that are both a home and a barn; and a smaller version, Txiki, Basque for “little,” which was aged three months.
In 2016, Marcia, wanting more time for other activities, stopped making cheese. She now focuses on high-quality wool production and purebred breeding stock, and she continues to sell freezer lamb. She also switched to sheep breeds known for their fiber. Her fiber flock now consists of Corriedales, known for their finer fleece, and Romneys, which have beautiful colors.
The sheep wear canvas coats to protect their fleece. She changes the coats five times a year, more frequently than other ranchers; Marcia feels doing so is crucial to make ample room for the sheep’s growing fleece and, more importantly, to not constrict or hurt the animals.
At the end of the summer, after the sheep are shorn, she carefully spreads out each fleece, one at a time, on a skirting table, a wooden frame covered with chicken wire. She methodically removes the rougher-edged outer area of the fleece. By the time she’s finished, what’s left is an area about the same size as was covered by the canvas coat, with a weight of about eight pounds.
Depending on the type of wool, she sends the fleeces to mills in either Woodland or Mendocino. There they are carded, a process that cleans and creates tufts of wool called rovings. The rovings are then spun into yarn or sold to home spinners. Marcia sells her wool primarily online but also at county fairs and through Fibershed, an organization that promotes a regional fiber system through workshops, events and a membership-based network of farmers, ranchers, designers, sewers, weavers, knitters, felters, spinners, mill owners and natural dyers. This year, for the first time, Marcia entered her fleeces at the Mendocino and Monterey County Fairs. She proudly returned home with numerous first-class ribbons.
Marcia keeps meticulous records on the genetics of each sheep and knows their family lineage. Corey, who has a doctorate in neurobiology and spent his career working with biotechnology companies, consults on sheep breeding. The couple selects which of the six rams to breed to each of the 48 ewes to achieve the best-quality fleece, control for color and maintain bloodlines.
Each year, Marcia keeps some of the lambs that she feels will produce superior fleece, based on their genes and her intuition. The remainder she sells for meat. It’s difficult for her to part with the lambs, but she needs to keep her flock size manageable. She has a breeding stock of 48, but with her rams and retired sheep, some of them East Friesians from her original milking stock, she has a total of 74 animals. It’s a constant balance between retiring older sheep and bringing in new ones.
Her old creamery, which has been repurposed for fleece dyeing and storage, is still called “the Creamery.” There, Marcia creates dyes from indigo, marigolds, coreopsis, avocado pits and dandelions, with many of those plants grown on the ranch. Marcia gets excited every time she dyes her wool and sees the beautiful hues seep into the yarn.
Working with State Assemblyman Mark Levine, Marcia was instrumental in the passage of A.B. 888, which allows the slaughter of lamb, swine and goat on small ranches. She gives generously to her community and sits on the boards of MALT, the West Marin Fund and Bar C, a mobile slaughter cooperative. Her fleeces, roving, yarn and freezer lambs can be purchased on the ranch’s website, www.barinagaranch.com.
Lamb Cigars
Marcia has always liked to cook and even, for a period, made wine with her father. Besides a simple grilled lamb chop, here’s one of her favorite lamb recipes.
Serves 4
Lamp Cigars
1 small red onion
1/3 cup parsley
2 slices stale white bread, torn into bite-size pieces
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon Baharat (see recipe below)
1 tablespoon Maras pepper*
(can substitute Aleppo pepper)
1 tablespoon Urfa pepper*
(can substitute red pepper flakes)
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound ground lamb
Grandma’s Rice (see recipe below)
2 tomatoes, chopped for serving
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped for serving
Tzatziki sauce (see recipe below)
Finely chop the onion and parsley in a small food processor or by hand. Place in a mixing bowl and mix in the bread, milk, Baharat, peppers, salt and lamb. Form into elongated meatballs about 1” in diameter and 2” long, resembling cigars. There will be about 16.
Grill or broil the cigars. Marcia broils them on a parchment-paper lined cookie sheet until just done through, about 6 to 8 minutes.
Serve piled on Grandma’s rice, with chopped tomatoes and parsley sprinkled on top, and tzatziki sauce on the side.
Baharat
4 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons ground coriander
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons ground cloves
3 tablespoons ground cumin
1 tablespoons ground cardamom
4 tablespoons ground nutmeg
4 tablespoons paprika
Mix all the spices together. Store extra in a jar and use for other recipes.
Grandma’s Rice
1 cup white basmati rice
1 tablespoon butter
15 sticks vermicelli, broken into little pieces
1 1/4 cups chicken broth
Soak rice for 15 to 20 minutes in about two cups of water. Strain and rinse.
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the vermicelli to the melted butter and brown for a few minutes, watching and stirring so it doesn’t burn.
Add the rice and toast it, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add chicken broth and salt to taste. Bring to a boil. Cover and cook until done, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let steam for 10 minutes.
Tzatziki sauce
1 cup plain yogurt
2 medium cucumbers, peeled,
seeded and chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 large garlic clove
(or more to taste), chopped
Salt and paprika to taste
Mix together all the ingredients. Season with salt and paprika. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
*Maras and Urfa peppers can be purchased online. Marica orders them from Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, MA (https://www.formaggiokitchen.com )