Landscape Diaries: Spring Coyote Ranch

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A friendly coyote on the sign on the entrance gate welcomes visitors to the eponymous Spring Coyote Ranch. Owners of the Marhsall, California property, Kelli and Ken Dunaj sustainably tend olives, sheep, cows, and chickens on 200 acres of land. Come with us on a tour.

Tobi the llama, with his charismatic “smokestack” coloring, lives with Kelli’s herd of female alpacas.

Several recently shorn female alpacas, eagerly eating a lunch of alfalfa hay.

Handsome, long-lashed Paco stands guard for Kelli’s 40-plus churro ewes.

Navajo churro sheep are wonderfully adapted to California’s summer-dry landscape.

Spring Coyote Ranch yarn, featuring blends of alpaca and churro wool, is a favorite among knitters at the Saturday farmers’ market in Point Reyes Station.

Angora goats (whose fiber is known as mohair), while gorgeous, may not be as well suited as Kelli had hoped to West Marin’s notorious fog.

Originally hailing from the dry mountains of Turkey, angoras may be adapted to drought, but not so much to coastal moisture.

Kelli looks out over Tomales Bay from an upper pasture.

Kelli blends olives from three varieties of trees—Maurino, Pendolino, and Taggiasca—to make olive oil.

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