I Have Decided to Remember

When it is too early to be awake. When the sun has yet to rise and my mind has been telling me for a couple hours of all the things undone, the decisions unmade, the shortcomings and impossibilities. And my other mind has been quietly saying not really, so what, doesn't matter, because my body is still wanting rest, my cells saying replenish us, saying we will keep you alive to work another day but you have to give us time for ourselves.

Harvest

Sitting by the cookstove, having made a fire as quietly as possible, and reheated a cup of coffee, taking it out of the microwave when the timer says one second, before the jarring five-beeps of 'done' disturbs the other human in the house who is still asleep, I am studying.

In my left hand is the book I have been trying to finish before the second renewal on the interlibrary loan expires.  A deceptively small book of nearly 300 very dense pages in size 9 font. A book that turns out to be a kind of manna for a hunger that I am still discovering exists in me. A book I was advised to read by my colleague Janet, a risk-taker, daughter of immigrants, survivor of bad behaving bosses who were let off in spite of being called out under the 'protections' that claim to give us the right to labor in safety. Janet, a speaker-upper and sufferer of doubts, lover of human beings and desirer of change.  Of course I'm reading it.

From the garden

And plowing through the tall grass of learning inside this book, occasionally I reach a hawthorn thicket and lack the gumption to pick up a machete and hack my way forward. I make a few feeble attempts to push ahead and consider going back. Taking the easy way out. But by now, I've absorbed too much of this study, this learning that feels like a missing element introduced into my personal reactor, allowing neurons I never knew I had to start messaging each other, oblivious to my intention.

Wes, Abby, Punch (grown up) in the barn

This book of strategy, of magic, of agency, of future. It simultaneously evokes relief and dismay, possibility and doubt. It calls forth the manifestation of the high school teacher, weirdly savant, who expected us to imagine social engineering through the lens of science fiction written by extraterrestrials. Which made perfect sense to me, when everyone else thought he was crazy.

Gate to mailbox

It calls forth the bizarre contrasts of a life with both the self-choosing of hermitage and manual labor on the ranch and the dogged commitment to a job in a hierarchy where a superior reminds me, Don't forget, I get to decide what you do with your brain. 

And so this book, this infectious changeling breaking out of its birth-shell to replicate in vulnerable hosts like me, leads me to a decision.

Wes caught a frog in the marsh

I have decided to remember.  I have decided to listen to the people who arrive inside this ecomap of self where I am experimenting with making sense. For whatever reason they choose to be here. For whatever reason, as yet unknown to me, that has brought them here.

Punch (Opuntia - Prickly Pear) as a puppy

And this morning, as the sky turns from black to matte blue in the west and to streaky grey-blue on the horizon of the Seven Devils in the east, I remember Yesenia. Because she is here in the kitchen with me. Right now.




And I wonder why. And I think of her fierceness, her quiet apologetic confession when her heart is not right and she needs to lie down for a moment, her casual declarations of intention in business, her crossing the blood barrier of culture and language and family and success.  And I think of her among the agave plants and the cricket protein and the fruity paletas of entrepreneurial exploration, bouncing back and forth among the powerful monied and the powerful poor. And I think of the invitation of fiesta, that I could not partake in but longed to, Dia de los Muertos, at her tiny house in its bigger yard that I have never been to in Southeast Portland, an invitation to be with family, to speak and love in the sounds of other languages of us, the people of earth.

Altar -- Dia de los Difuntos

So in spite of nearly a year since I last thought of Yesenia, this person I know very little about, I text her to thank her for visiting me in the predawn in the kitchen where I am sitting next to the ticking fire of the cookstove, with the sound of the wind flowing across the fields outside, and I tell her mi mama fallecio el fin de Junio. I tell her how the day my mother died was a day of love and friendship and humor. How astounded I was at the gift my mother gave me of being able to wash her corpse and the revelation of beauty and strength cultivated over 94 years that allowed her to achieve her life-long desire to donate herself to students of medicine as an aged female with no disqualifying conditions, because her own life was transformed by the gift of education when she was young and poor and studying the bodies of others who had given themselves to be dissected, to be revealed in their glorious intricacy and variation.

Con mi Mama

I have decided to remember there is a reason people come up behind me and are tapping at my senses. They are speaking and I'm going to listen.



From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef.

Fairy Godmother of Systems Change

Without a Word

One of the things I love is the quiet, calm, wordless world of handling our beautiful cattle. I experience this sometimes poking along with a bunch of cows strung out along a trail, taking their time as they slowly make their way from one part of the range to another. A munch here, a munch there, a swish of tail, a swing of a cow's long-horned head looking back to make sure her calf is still just a few animals behind and then moving on through the brush, across a creek, or side-hilling a slope beneath stair-stepped rims.

Our lives became more complicated when Mike took on the grazing management of 30,000 acres of Zumwalt Prairie Preserve a few years ago.  I've learned a lot watching him consider the intersection of millennia of past tradition and mere decades of modern demands in this landscape.

Mike on the Zumwalt

As a herder and a pastoralist for nearly all of his adult life, the care and tending of animals is in his blood. As a rangeland ecologist, he is deeply attentive to the relationships between plants, animals and their environment. And perhaps most importantly, he approaches this blending of culture and science as a precious and imperfect unfolding, the way-finding of story. What do we know? What do we see? What are we telling each other? Are we listening?

Going forward with the ranch sometimes feels like tiptoeing across a bog. You have to keep moving or you will sink into the muck, so you pick a set of hummocks and you go for it. Guessing how much force you need to leap from one mound to the next, trying to land as delicately as you can in case your perch proves too soft and you need to keep going, getting just enough purchase to launch again. A wobbly hopscotch through an unknown mire where you can see the solid ground you're aiming for on the other side. But who knows, will it really be as solid as you think?

As we juggle five or more grazing leases of our own every year, we must consider each property's needs and provisions; its owners, fences, waters, forages and logistics. Some with cabins and barns and corrals and water systems and roads to maintain. Some with nothing but a weak fence and difficult neighbors.

Trailing to fall pasture on the prairie

I'm challenged to communicate how much it means to have quiet help in this work. Just the other day as Mike, Dave and I gathered and sorted some of our beautiful two-year old steers for harvesting, the fellowship of good help washed over me in a moment of joy and wonder. Every part, from bringing the steers off the hillside and through the gate onto the road, turning them into the corrals, sorting them on horseback and on foot, loading them into the trailers, was done quietly with a firm and gentle nature.

Dave builds a loop at branding time

We were aware of the alternatives. We've all been part of loud, frantic scenes of barking dogs, yelling people, roaring four-wheelers, bellering cattle, charging horses. Ramming and jamming. Dogging 'em. Git 'er done.

If heaven is a transcendent intersection between the terrestrial world and the unknown, with the possibility of rebirth at the cusp of uncertainty and danger, it includes quiet moments of grace like these. A few souls, gathered together, doing as best they can for one another, reconciling life and death, being willing to change and knowing circumstances might not be this way tomorrow or next year or a million years from now.

And what can I say to Dave? Stepping up to help us as a day-rider, when once again his peaceful and competent approach aligns with ours like the rivulets of a stream joining together to flow gently over an obstacle in their path, and quietly carrying on. Just carrying on.

Andi tallies

Mostly I just say, "Thanks Dave." And he nods and we go on with our work. But as time goes on I'm realizing that the beauty of this effort needs to be acknowledged with more words. And I try to remember each time we receive help in this way; whether it's one person or a group of people; whether gathering, trailing, branding or hauling; I try to remember to say what I mean, "Thank you for helping us. Thank you for being safe and for treating the animals with respect and care."


From Sara at Magpie Ranch, Home of Bunchgrass Beef

Predictability and Change

We made it to the summer range. Does this sound familiar? Sometimes I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over, because the rhythms of our lives repeat year after year. If we are lucky, they are rhythms we like. The groove, the lullaby, the tango, the march, the two-step, the waltz.

Little Red 

We had good help again trailing the cows, another circling around with children and grandchildren. Mike and I got things started, gathering the herd and bringing them down to the river bar below the house. We sorted off steers and left them in the corral and took the cows and calves across the river and pushed them up through the gate towards Crazyman Point.  While we were over there, Sedona decided to escape the horse pasture, swim the river, which was pretty high with meltwater, and jump the fence to join us. Silly mare. She missed Chester.

Gathering cattle off the East Bench in the canyon

Next morning I trailed cows and calves to the Hall place and Gabe and Mike hauled the steers to the valley. Chester picked up the long trot until we found the cattle who were all the way to Packsaddle. I held them while Gabe and Mike passed by with the trucks and trailers. Then it was a short push back to Halls and through gate. After that Chester carried me smooth and fast back to the house. No shenanigans. It was a nice day.

Cows leaving Packsaddle for Halls

After letting them graze at Halls for a week, Prairie and Mike gathered the cows and calves and got them started up Log Creek. The heavy rains of spring had turned the draw into a poison oak jungle. Gabe hiked up early that morning to clear trail, with a chainsaw! When he got back to the house I met him at the door with a bottle of poison oak soap and a towel and said, "Take a shower!" Amazingly, he never broke out with it, but I did.

Harlan has a horse sit at Log Creek with Prairie and Sara

Next morning, day four, we got off to a late start. Prairie and Jon and Harlan had to head back to Portland, so Cammie, Gabe, Dawson, Weston and Abby came out to help. The cattle had topped out and overnighted near a pond by the cambium peeled trees and in the morning they'd wandered off to graze.  For a while we were afraid we might have lost them in the timber, but no, they were good cows and had stayed on the trail toward Thomason Meadows, more or less.

Cammie, Dawson, Wes and Gabe heading cows toward Thomason

The wildflowers were in full bloom, larkspur, Old Man's Whiskers (Prairie Smoke), yarrow, allium, paintbrush, clarkia, erigeron, biscuit root.  While hiking through the forest, Weston picked a bouquet for Mike. "I really love nature," Wes said.

Mike's bouquet

By the time we got to Thomason, the day was quickly heating up. We took a lunch break and let the cows drift and graze for a while.

Lunchtime with Abby, Cammie, Dawson, Gabe, Wes

The longest part of the day was getting from Thomason to the head of Alder Creek. Cammie and the kids and I rode, while Mike and Gabe drove the trucks and trailers. At one point a bunch of McClaran bulls started bellering on a ridge off to our right. Dawson and Wes engaged in a bull-calling contest until I told them to quit and hurry up and get the cows through the next gate before the bulls decided to come join us. Pretty soon about eight red bulls came roaring up to the fence. Luckily they were more interested in harassing each other than getting in with our cows.

Leaving Thomason

Mike had already hauled our bulls to the McClaran corrals at the 400 acres. The plan was that when we came by with the cows, we would turn the bulls out and the herd would be back together for the summer. When we got near the corrals, Mike rode off to let the bulls out while I pushed the cows through the gate into the 400 acres. Unfortunately the cows balled up at the gate at the same time my horse decided to throw a hissy fit about her buddy leaving her behind. She started dancing around and I figured I'd better get off, but everytime I undallied my McCarty rope from the saddle horn and took my foot out of the stirrup she'd spin another circle and I'd have to redally and push her forward so I could stay in control.  I'd made about three unsuccessful attempts to get my horse to stop, when I saw that Mike had let the bulls out and they were on a dead run for the cows, half of whom were still on the wrong side of the gate. I finally just bailed off when my horse was turning a circle. I landed on my feet and shoved the last of the cows through the gate and got it shut before the enthusiastic bulls plowed into the herd. Boy were they glad to see those cows.

Sara and cows at the 400 acres on the Zumwalt Prairie

After that little excitement, everybody calmed down. We were almost to our summer pasture and the last bit down through the trees to the head of Alder Creek went smoothly. In the bottom we saw where an incredible gully washer had gouged an eight foot cut right alongside the two-track leaving huge ruts in places and taking out a fence in the process. We turned the cows through the last gate and propped up the fence as best we could. We figured the lush grass, tired cows and eager bulls would be happy to stay put until we had a chance to come make the needed repairs. 

Like cow, like calf, a good mama on the summer range

As we rode back toward the corrals we talked about how it seems like the flash floods are getting worse and more frequent with climate change and the increasing intensity of storms.  And we thought about adaptation, and what it feels like to live with unpredictability. And we were glad to be certain of one thing, we made it to the summer range again and a late dinner and hot bath were waiting for us back in the valley. 

From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef

Saved by the Green

You can't go wrong with a St Patrick's Day pie. Especially if it is from the fruit you picked last year and froze and it's mulberry, blackberry, blackcherry. Especially if it is for your 40th wedding anniversary.  That's B for berry.

40 year anniversary pie

It's hard to believe we've been partners for 43 years. The first three years, while dating, we were mostly far apart, sometimes on different continents. Alaska, Germany, Washington, Minnesota, Oregon, Yukon Territory. When we finally decided to get married and go to work on a ranch, we thought we might be spending more time together. 

Bridge railing supplies

We soon found that ranch work involves long distances and often long separations. I've always loved working with Mike, even though sometimes we 'disagree' on how to get things done. He decides. I consider. Then we negotiate.  About half the time we come up with the same solution. The other half of the time I'm right, or he is. Either way the jobs get done, or they don't, but we try hard and mostly we do good work. Together.  

Gabe and Mike install railing on new bridge

Sometimes when Mike worked for McClarans, if we wanted to spend a night together we had to sleep in the old travel trailer at the heifer lot on Cow Creek. All four of us. Mike and I bunked on the bottom and the two kids bunked on top, about 18 inches over our heads. This was BZ. Before Zeke.

Our home place back then was at Brown Canyon near Imnaha. Mike only got one day off every few weeks and most of that was spent driving back from Cow Creek, doing laundry and fixing stuff. You can see why I thought the heifer lot was better than nothing.  

Don't fall in the river Mike! 

Gabe and Prairie had a blast getting into stuff, helping chore, 'driving' the truck. I think they were three and four. It was the same year Grey Ghost, a McClaran pack horse, went berserk packing fence material. She bucked off her pack and ran all the way back to Cow Creek, where she jumped off a little rim, knocked open a swinging gate by the yard, gathered up the saddle stock and ran them into the pasture where the kids and I were walking back to the house. The horses thundered towards us with Prairie obliviously running ahead of me to 'win the race.' I yelled at her and she stopped and saw the horses. Maybe she was petrified, but she stood stock still while the running horses parted around her like a river around a rock. Scared the beejeezus out me, but I learned something. A horse isn't likely to run over you if they can avoid it.  

Abby 2 1/2, looking like a little Mongolian

Just like Prairie did, Abby sometimes wears attire that I concoct from whatever is on hand. I made Prairie overalls and dresses on my beloved treadle sewing machine, using fabric cut from old garments, curtains or tablecloths. Sometimes I got wool at the mill in Pendleton. With Abby, it's mostly my vests, when she forgets her coat at the house and the wind comes up when we're choring or fishing. It's not quite in keeping with her fashion standards (she takes after Cammie), but she tolerates it.  

Cammie and Abigail on the way to Witch's Hat

McClaran's are celebrating 100 years on their ranch this year. Sometimes when I meet Scott on the river road and we stop for a chat with our windows down, we talk about all the changes we've seen over the decades. The people who've come and gone. The people we miss. And sometimes we marvel at the fact that of all the people who have come and gone, we're the ones still here following the cattle, riding the range, packing salt, driving bad roads. 

Skinny cow that tried to take Sara down

There's a saying that there are only two kinds of cowboy poetry.  The kind where somebody dies, which is tragedy. And the kind where they survive, which is comedy. So I guess it was comedy when a cow almost gored me back in March It was right after Snowmageddon and she was so poor I could count her ribs. We kept her in when the other cows trailed back to the bench so we could feed her hay by the box elder grove. I was hauling a couple buckets of water for her from the river and I looked up to see the 'feeble' cow jumping over her pile of hay and coming at me like a freight train, head down, horns forward. 

I dropped one of the buckets and backpedaled as fast as I could over the hummocky hard ground, yodeling for Mike, who was somewhere behind me at the truck. "Drop the bucket and run!" he shouted. But I couldn't. The bucket was the only thing between me and the cow and she was already butting it. Right when I started to stumble, I heard Mike come up behind me with a stockwhip and the cow reversed gears. I dropped the bucket and turned around, wobbling my way to the truck. For days, I cringed every time I thought of those pitchfork horns just wide enough to fit one on either side of me as long as I stayed on my feet. Every time Mike thought about it he laughed.

Weston made it to the top!

That's the nature of a good partnership, reliability. If you add up all the disappointments and the disagreements and the misunderstandings and the frustrations, they still don't amount to near as much as the times you saved each others' lives, which in the ranching business seems to happen more often than usual.

Mid March and still snowing

And even if all you need is moral support, you can count on a partner to share the load.  Whether it's bad storms, a sick horse, a brokedown truck, climate change or social upheaval, when you're the one down, your partner helps you see the future with a little more acceptance, a little more gentleness. And when they're in a dark mind, you take your turn to paint a picture of good things that might come again.

Hallelujah! The grass is growing at the end of March! 

And so green finally came to the canyon again, transforming in its magical way the hungry bodies of ruminants. And I'm thankful for all the animals who can rise up on this nutritious food, and for the power of spring to rejuvenate us in this corner of the world. And I think of the people who have lived here for thousands of years, and the ones who have been here just a hundred years, or maybe even just forty.

From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef

Bad Trails Shifting Loads

Packing salt in early February did not go as planned. Although the West bench was mostly dry, it turned out that even without snow, the East bench was treacherous.

East side, half frozen and greasy.

 Mike and Andrew wanted to give Looking Glass a packing lesson, so they loaded her up and set out with Chester and Sedona.

Andrew and Mike headed upriver

After they left, I fed the yearlings in the weaning pen and the early calver with her calf "Dirty Snowball." He was born at Pumpkin Creek just before we trailed back to the Imnaha.

Dirty Snowball and his mother Little Red on the chow line

I kept an eye out and eventually I saw Mike climbing the steep trail to the bench. He was riding Sedona and leading Chester and even from a distance I could see Chester lunging for footing. The question was, where was Andrew.

Looking Glass  getting ready for packing lesson

After a while, Andrew came back, leading Looking Glass along the river. He told me she slid off the trail and rolled her pack. They switched the pack to Chester and Mike continued on up the trail. Looking Glass was okay, but it wasn't a good day for a packing lesson. Andrew and I got busy with other chores and in the late afternoon, heavy snow clouds began to roll in.

Snow moving in

There was no sign of Mike. I thought he was taking an awfully long time and I started to worry he might not get back before dark.  That's when I spotted him coming off the bench on foot.  He arrived at the barn, weary and dirty and reported the trails were goo. Even in sharp shoes the horses couldn't keep their feet. After both Sedona and Chester slid on the trail, Mike got off and walked the whole rest of the way. He fell down a couple times too, but he got the job done.

Cork gouge near the coronary band. 

I kind of wished he'd given up.  In the scramble to get his feet, Chester corked himself, gouging the top of his left front hoof with the rear caulk on his right front shoe. That was some fancy footwork that kept him on the trail, but left its' mark, and I hoped it would heal okay in the muddy conditions.

Snow top to bottom in the canyon

Next morning, we woke up to snow clear down to the river  It was the beginning of a long hard spell so I guess it was a good thing Mike got the salt out after all. 

From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef 

Little Red

Looking Back Thinking Ahead

Right when you think the days will never get any longer, the sun rises on the shortest day of the year. What a relief.

Valley sunrise

And I think of all that has happened since the last time I felt this way.  Wandering backward through the year, trailing cattle to the winter range, and before that -- the move to fall range, and before that---trailing out of the canyon to the Zumwalt prairie. And scattered in between, there's packing salt, weaning, branding, steer harvest and all the other chores of running a ranch.

Trailing to the winter range

And none of it happens without help. Of which it seems we need more and different of the last couple years. And some of the faces are familiar, old hands like us from the old days. And some are younger, but still familiar, ready for the hard climb, the careful travel on remote and icy range. And some are newer, wanting to contribute, and we are willing to figure each other out, willing to try to understand the work together.

Andi, old hand and wild woman of range 

When I look back, I can't help but think its a long ways forward. The work and unfinished business ahead can feel overwhelming.

Gabe, steep country for fencing

Then I remember how as a child, when I had to get somewhere on foot and it was taking way too long, I'd tell myself, "A while ago you were at the bottom of the hill by the creek thinking it was too far, and now you're already at the top of the hill and pretty soon you'll be there." It was like a game of mental leap frog, and it always helped me keep going.

Starting point, the old riparian feedlot 

In the Magpie Ranch chapter of our life, this taking stock now goes back not one year, but decades. I think of starting out, how the river bar was a winter feedlot where we worked as hired hands. A place deep in mud and manure churned up by hundreds of black-bally cows taking their daily ration of hay and waiting to have their calves and be turned back out on the range.

Old feedlot, now restoration project

There was something grim about it back then, after the flood of '97, and all those the feedlots. When we bought our first cows and made our first plans I wondered if our ideas and our labor could get us at least close to where we wanted to go. Now when spring rolls around and I walk through the old feedlot, I look at the lush grass and think of the years of burning and seeding and weeding and tell myself, "Well that didn't take all that long, really." And I feel like going forward will bring some other good change, and I'm ready to keep walking.

Old Newt on one of his last trips to the canyon

Old Newt dog won't be walking with us this year. He departed for the cowdog range in heaven last October. He was fourteen. His legacy as a good dog with heart was measured also by his surviving being run over by me driving a truck loaded with hay when he was ten months old. The months in a cast and pins almost drove him crazy, but he healed with a crooked hind leg that didn't stop him from working hard for ten more years.

Mike taking a break from herding

So here we go into the new year. Hopefully remembering to find a good rock to rest on, and to rest on it when we need to. And maybe have a conversation about the work still needed to end the day, or maybe even a conversation about life and the world and us in it, making choices, looking for help, managing the range, as Mike says, "like gardening on a very large scale."


From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef