We’re staging the cows to leave for the hills, putting
groups back together since calving and branding, and moving them to green grass
on pastures around the home ranch. We’ll open the gates and start walking towards our mountain range next week.
Staging is not to be confused with “shaping them up,” which
is the term my Mom used to describe going through the cows and sorting off
those that weren't trail ready. The herd will walk fifty miles before they reach
the high country. We will walk or ride with them and it’s not for the unfit.
But unfit I am. The older I get the more pain is endured
when spending hours on a horse when one has been too long out of the saddle.
Yesterday I wore biking shorts under my jeans to go with the rough-out leather pad on my
saddle, wore my chaps for extra protection, took two ibuprofen, and I’m still
bruised and sore this morning. It was a beautiful day though and so good for my well-being to see luscious grass instead of tightly grazed feed ground.
Mark put an electric string around the house and let the
pairs in to graze areas that they usually don’t get to. I had a hard time
getting any work done because I wanted to simply sit on the terrace and watch
cows eat. Andre Voisin, author of the classic Grass Productivity called the process, poetically, “the cow at grass.”
The birds are back! How I love the familiar two-note song of
the chickadee and the flash of an oriole in his pumpkin-colored plumage. I got
in trouble with Mark because I took the good binoculars out of his calving
pickup and moved them to the kitchen for bird watching. But not too much
trouble because we both enjoy the birds so much.
I planted the early garden vegies, kale, lettuce, swiss
chard, carrots and beets. And we’re getting asparagus! Our humble sandhill
ranch grows wild asparagus by the armful. Only a few choice individuals know
where my asparagus “gardens” are. My favorite way to prepare the little
darlings is browned in butter on the stove, with garlic.
I helped Mark start water at our farm we bought when the
kids were little. The ditch originates at “the Hornet’s Nest,” so named because
of the arguments over water rights conducted by two or more farmers at the three-way split. Starting
water requires burning the ditch first and then frenzied pitching when the
water is first turned in. The canal company has helped Mark for a few years with a bucket on a backhoe. We trade labor. We burn the ditch and they provide the equipment when it's flushed. How did we ever do it with just a pitchfork?
The glory of spring never pales. Or rather, it only
strengthens as we age and learn what glory really means. The work never ends, but there is loveliness all around. The fragrance of the plum tree
blossoms in the windbreak, the nest of duck eggs saved from the fire along the
ditch bank, the munching of cows gathering grass - and let’s not forget
asparagus – are balm for the soul.
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| Rollah and Dot at the end of a long day grass at last! |
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| grazing close to the house |
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| this ditch cleaned by grazing |
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| Mark gets a welcome hand |
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