Outlaw Creek Ranch

Well… apparently one calf needing a little extra attention wasn’t enough excitement for one week. 🤎

We had TWINS arrive at Outlaw Creek Ranch today. 🐮🐮

For a little while, we got this sweet picture of both babies up with Mama, and we were hopeful everyone was going to settle right in.

Farm life had other plans. 😅

Mama has decided she’s pretty sure about one baby… and not quite so sure about the other. After she became too aggressive with the little bull calf for us to safely leave him with her, we made the decision to pull him.

So as I type this, we officially have a calf living in the garage. 😂🤦🏼‍♀️

His twin is still out with Mama because she is claiming and protecting that baby, and we’re giving them every opportunity to figure out the nursing part. In the meantime, we’re making sure both babies get the colostrum and care they need, whether Mama cooperates or not.

We’re hoping that after some rest and a little time, things may look completely different tomorrow.

But for tonight?

One baby with Mama.
One baby in the garage.
Bottles everywhere.
And two more little lives to take care of.

Just another perfectly normal day at Outlaw Creek Ranch. 🤎😂

Welcome to the world, little ones. You certainly know how to make an entrance.

Most evenings around sunset, I’m inside making dinner and miss this part of the day.

But tonight looked a little different.

We have a steer calf we’ve been doctoring, so after dinner I headed back out for another round of checking on him, feeding everyone, and making sure the rest of the herd was doing well.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I got to stand and watch our little guy nurse his mama for a good 30 minutes. 🤎 I spent a few quiet minutes with my horses. And then I looked up and saw this beautiful sunset over the rest of the herd.

Farm life has a way of changing your plans.

Sometimes it means the things on your to-do list don’t get done. Sometimes it means worrying about an animal, making one more trip outside, or checking on them just one more time before bed.

But sometimes, that extra trip outside is exactly where you needed to be.

Tonight I’m grateful for a calf with plenty of fight left in him, 🐂 a mama taking good care of her baby, healthy animals grazing in the pasture 🌾, a few quiet minutes with my horses, and a sunset I probably would have missed otherwise. 🌅

We’re still praying for our little steer and hoping each day brings a little more healing. 🙏🏼

Just a little glimpse of real life behind Outlaw Creek Ranch. 🤎
:::

“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.”
Colossians 3:23 🤍

A reminder for the week ahead. 🤍

Happy Sunday from Outlaw Creek Ranch.

You may have followed us for the tallow… but this is the life behind it. 🤎🐴

Lately, one of my kids’ favorite things is heading outside in the evening to ride horses. And honestly, these are the moments that remind me why we’ve chosen this life. 🥹

We homeschool 📖 because we wanted the freedom to let learning happen beyond a desk - caring for animals, building confidence 🔨 , learning responsibility, working with their hands, and having time for evenings like this.

That freedom comes with sacrifices, especially financially. Outlaw Creek Ranch has become an important part of making it possible for me to stay home, teach our kids, and continue building this life alongside my husband. 🖤

So when you order a jar of tallow, you’re supporting so much more than skincare. 📦

You’re supporting a family trying to raise kids who know how to work hard, care for animals 🐂 , appreciate where things come from, and hopefully grow up knowing that a good life doesn’t always have to look like everyone else’s. 🤍

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“But I have oily skin… why would I put FAT on my face?” 👀

It sounds backwards, right? 😂

One reason people are drawn to tallow skincare is its fatty-acid profile.

Tallow naturally contains fatty acids such as oleic, palmitic, and stearic acid — fatty acids that are also associated with the lipid environment of our skin. That doesn’t mean tallow is identical to human sebum, but it helps explain why many people find it feels very different from what they expected from “beef fat.”

I personally only need a very small amount on my face. A little goes a long way. 🖤

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“But I don’t eat meat… could I really use tallow skincare?” 🥩

I had this exact conversation with a vegetarian 🌱 at the farmers market last weekend — and she ended up taking home two jars. 🤍

One thing I always explain is that we are not raising or harvesting cattle just to make skincare. Tallow comes from fat that already exists as part of beef processing, and using it gives another purpose to something that might otherwise have very little value or go to waste. 🗑️

I’ve always loved the idea of using what we have well and wasting as little as possible. 🫶 To me, it’s a modern version of whole-animal stewardship: if an animal is already being harvested for food, why not honor that resource by finding useful purposes for more of it? ✨ Remember learning about Native Americans using ALL parts of the Bison 🦬?

And when you consider how little finished tallow we get from an entire batch of carefully selected suet, harvesting an animal for skincare alone is not something ANYONE could afford, especially in today’s cattle market. 🐂 💴 😳

For our family, using tallow is actually part of our commitment to less waste, simpler ingredients, and making the most of what’s already available. 🤍

That doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for everyone — but I love having that conversation with people who are curious

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“But doesn’t tallow smell like a cheeseburger?” 🍔😂

If it’s made well… it really shouldn’t. 👎🏻

We use premium suet only, carefully hand-trim it, toss anything discolored, and slow dry-render every batch because the fat you start with makes a BIG difference!

That’s one reason people are often surprised by how mild even our unscented balm smells. 🤍

No burger-face situation over here. 😂



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One jar replaced a whole lot of clutter in MY bathroom cabinet. 😂🤍

Over time, I realized I was reaching for our Tallow Balm more than anything else on my counter- and slowly, I just didn’t need a lot of the products I used to keep around.

Less clutter. Fewer products to buy. And as a busy mom, I LOVE being able to throw one little jar in my bag and go. 🙌🏼

👉🏼 Swipe to see some of the ways I personally use it.

What’s one product you’d LOVE to eliminate from your bathroom cabinet?

🐂 Why We Do Things Differently

Why Don’t We Mass Produce? 📦

We’ve actually had investors approach us about helping scale our tallow skincare. And while that’s incredibly exciting, there’s one thing we’re not willing to scale back on: the way we make it. 👎🏻

To mass produce at that level, we’d have to change how we source our ingredients, change our process, or compromise some of the standards we’ve set for the products we use on our own family. And we’re just not willing to do that. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Our process starts before we ever turn on the oven with a stock pot.

🐄 We specifically select suet (the fat surrounding the kidneys) from our butcher, rather than simply using general beef trim.

🔪 We spend 6–8 hours hand-trimming our suet, keeping the beautiful, clean white fat and removing anything we don’t want going into the final render. (Don’t worry-the chickens are VERY happy to help with the scraps. 🐓😂)

🫙 And after all of that trimming? A batch yields only about a gallon of finished tallow.

🧑🏻‍🍳 Then comes another 12–14+ hours of slow, dry rendering in stainless steel. We don’t wet render.

🌿 Once rendered, it’s filtered again through organic cheesecloth, combined with our carefully selected ingredients, and hand-poured through stainless steel funnels into our amber glass jars and bottles.

It’s slow. It’s labor intensive. And it would certainly be easier to do it differently.🙌🏻

But we haven’t found a way to mass produce our products without changing the sourcing, process, and attention to detail that make them ours.

Maybe that’s the point.

Maybe some things are still worth making the slow, traditional way. 🤍

From our family to yours, that’s one detail we’re not willing to change.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord…”
— Colossians 3:23

Every jar we pour, every order we package, and every customer we serve is an opportunity to do our work with care and gratitude.

Wishing you a peaceful Sunday from our family at Outlaw Creek Ranch. 🤍