Life giving

Well, I guess I must have complained too many times about Jim’s driving, because today we’re walking. It’s hot, I’m not wearing the right shoes for this, and to get to the water tank we have to ford an irrigation ditch then slip between some very shiny new barbed wire.

On the way up we encounter the herd. “Stay behind me,” says Jim. Is one of these very large animals going to charge me, I wonder, as I secure my camera and walk a little faster.

prepping for the blast

“I don’t have any mean cows. But there’s a new baby and she has a VERY good mother,” Jim explains. I fall into line behind Jim, attempting to become invisible. The baby is one day old, cute as a button—barely larger than a large dog, and cavorting around near its mother. Because I don’t want to disturb anyone and because I’d also like to make it down the hill alive, I keep the camera stowed.

We finally get to the top. Jim is not even winded. I am crawling. Never again will I complain about the driving.

Jim, I should add, had greeted me in a soaking wet long-sleeved sweatshirt that struck me as oddly out of place on a heating-up summer day. Seems he had already fallen into several irrigation ditches earlier this morning, blasted himself with water from another setup, and gotten into other assorted predicaments—all before 9 a.m. My life is a picnic compared with Jim’s, I think, now watching him setting out a large plank and connecting the irrigation pipe to the water tank.

The plank, he explains, is to prevent erosion when the water gushes out. Jim thinks of everything. I wait. This will be great: a huge blast of water to irrigate the dryland pasture at the top of the hill at the Personeni ranch. And then… oh.

That’s it? All I can say is, see for yourself.

On the slog down the hill I’m reflecting. Yes, I will come back in two weeks to see how the Blue wildrye, dryland clover, and Harding grass have taken off. The seed will have imbibed the water, broken dormancy, and will be springing to life. The baby cow will have been joined by more baby cows, carefully tended when necessary, during all-night vigils by Jim.

It’s so much darned effort to grow these blades of grass that feed the cows that feed us. Relentless sun, relentless heat, relentless work. I don’t want to get all philosophical, but it’s the clearest example I’ve seen of the interconnectedness of all the parts, all the pieces it takes to carry out best practices in ranching. And what’s the point?

get yours

I dig through my pockets for the answer and fish out two yellow tickets. Good friends. Good times. Good food. A counterbalance to labor through the fruits of the labor. I can hardly wait. Yeah. Get your tickets or just go! Come Home to Eat 2010 is only a few days away. You gotta see Jim get dunked.

Solar water, solar pasture, solar beef

“We’ll take the motorcycle,” says Jim.

they're out there

Huh?

As usual, he is kidding. And remorseless. As a hint of warmth creeps into the day on the morning breeze, we walk to the barn and clamber onto the gator. Today I’ve stopped by to look at Jim’s latest project, or rather, one more milestone in a project that began a full three years ago and is just now coming to fruition: a solar pump that irrigates the pasture and waters the cattle.

We’re at the Personeni ranch, home for 25 of Jim’s cows. To see the solar setup, we tour the area backwards, starting with the water’s destination then finding its source, and the source of energy that moves the water uphill to a storage tank that fills a trough for the cows. Getting to these destinations involves a bit of a cattle drive, or cattle entourage, as the cows run over to greet us, satisfy their curiosity, and move on up to shade at the top of the hill.

My camera safely stowed, our cross country drive takes us down a steep ravine then up to a hilltop seeded with Blue wildrye, dryland clover, and Harding grass. Jim’s irrigation plan calls for developing the 10 acres that comprise the shoulder and slope of the hill by irrigating as summer ends, essentially moving up the onset of winter.

Three years ago, Jim began the irrigation project with a small electric pump, bringing water through buried pvc pipe to a hillside thick with Yellow star thistle. In the second year seeding began, and the grasses that took hold began to out compete the star thistle. This year, with more seeding, irrigation with power from the solar pump, and the planting of trees in the fall, the pasture will gradually come into its own as a valuable resource for the cows.

Today’s run up the hill is partly to check on the cows, and to test the ball valve that Jim recently installed at the base of the 2500-gallon water tank. The tank fills in about 4 hours when the pump is in continuous full sun, and takes a little under a day to fill when it’s cloudy or when the solar panels are in partial shade. The tank empties in about 20 minutes once Jim opens the valve, then the valve is closed and the tank can fill again. Between now and around August 15, Jim will connect a network of pipes to the tank, distributing water across the hillside, and the scene will shift from gold to green.

cow standing under cedars

Our next stop: cow town at the top of the hill. Or maybe a better description would be the cow forest. With fresh water now in nearby troughs (bathtubs, actually) fed by the tank, they now have a place—a fine place—in which to lounge, chew their cud, and escape the summer heat.

“You can change the way cattle use an area by re-positioning their water and their salt lick,” Jim explains. “Left to their own devices, cattle will overgraze a pasture, so it’s important to move them around,” he adds.

We enter a cool grove of Incense cedar studded with Black oak and Ponderosa pine; a welcome respite of delicate green boughs. Where are the cows? I look more closely and they step out, curious, then retreat again to their comfortable bower. As Jim calls it, their bed ground. Indeed it is the stuff of dreamy dreams, up here away from the heat. An oasis. A Narnia. A…

“Hey—I thought you were in a hurry!” barks Jim, and I snap out of my reverie and snap some shots of the very lucky cows.

the pond and pump

Last stop—what I’ve been waiting to see: the solar pump and the pond.

We ramble down the hill on the gator, and I notice how the conifers give way to Blue oaks as we lose elevation. Jim’s dog Red hops up behind me to take a break from running on three legs (that’s another story) and acknowledge me with a kiss on the ear.

jim and the pump

We walk out to the solar pump at the edge of the three-acre pond that’s fed by NID (Nevada Irrigation District) water. It appears makeshift, but the pump is actually a sophisticated contraption with a small computer and five panels that generate enough force to move water from the pond up 143 vertical feet at 11.79 gallons per minute to fill the hilltop tank.

I flip the switch on the pump to run the test. What’s surprising is how quiet the pump is. So quiet, in fact, that once I turn it on I can still hear the swallows, the woodpeckers, and even the swish of fins from the bass gliding past at water’s edge. Here. Take a listen.

Is that cool or what? Lower energy bills for Jim. More grass for the cows. More biodiversity for the other creatures on the land. A soil profile that’s slowly gaining in organic matter, nutrients, and health. I’ve gotta admit, for a country guy, Jim’s really got things dialed in.

But don’t, and I mean DON’T tell him I said that, OK? We don’t want him to think that just because he’s bringing his solar pump online, he’s now all high-tech and fancy!

Next week: Irrigation begins, and Jim prepares for his Dunk Tank experience at Come Home to Eat.

Resolution, range management, and megafarm madness

When I feel my eyeballs fusing to the screen and the css and php code coalescing into a pulpy jumble, I know it’s time to get out.

at pasture's edge

Out on the range with Jim, that is, to fill my brain with that beautiful acid green of Nevada County spring.

Except that this year, spring is crowding summer’s turf on the calendar, with seemingly no end in sight to the cool temps and Midwestern weather pattern of rain showers on a nearly weekly (or daily) basis.

For Jim, this year’s springtime shift away from our Mediterranean climate is a Godsend.

“Every day that I don’t have to irrigate is like heaven on earth. It saves me $65 a day in irrigation cost, and the lion’s share of that is for PG&E,” Jim declares as we rumble by truck across pasture land he leases bordering the Bear River, just east of the Garden Bar crossing. As usual, I hang on for dear life as Jim ironically observes: “The ground looks smooth, but it’s not” and stomps on the gas.

Yeah, Jim, no kidding. Even herders Bubbas and Red are on the scramble, balancing adroitly between the bales of hay and the odd assortment of junk that Jim has in the back bed.

Bubbas, through the window

There are 18 animals here on Jim’s leased 237-acre Bear River parcel. Gee, does that mean about 13 acres per cow? Not quite. Seems that in proper range management, there’s a difference between actual acres and effective acres. Actual acres are the total acres in the parcel. Effective acres are the usable acres—once rocks, creeks, and very steep terrain are subtracted. (Kind of like actual pixels and effective pixels when working out the resolution of a photo. Yes! I knew I had something in common with Jim: resolution!) So there are about 10 acres per cow, once Jim has backed out the unusable acres and arrived at a total of 170 effective acres.

But there’s more in the equation. A big, big deal for figuring effective acres is water. Once our oddball spring weather has passed, Jim intends on irrigating 35 acres of this land to maintain its carrying capacity year ‘round. Here’s the plan. Over the summer, Jim will clean out the existing ditches here, plus install a half mile of surface irrigation pipe. As summer winds down the system will be ready, enabling Jim to move about 20 miner’s inches of water from the Wolf-Hanneman canal beginning in the middle of August. This will effectively move up the onset of autumn on the newly-irrigated land. It will also create a protective greenbelt and firebreak; a plus for the land owner and for the safety of Nevada County.

As I ponder all this, Jim gets a call on his cell and takes it. It’s another order!

is it for me?

Our prolonged spring is also prompting Jim to enhance his planting strategy on this parcel. This year he’s been seeding for fall dryland grass production as well as for irrigated pasture grass. The dryland grass will germinate and grow during the summer, then the irrigated pasture grasses will come on line early with the newly irrigated acreage. The cattle that are here now will be moved to Jim’s larger irrigated pastures in a few months once the spring grass disappears, but eventually they’ll be brought back here and they’ll be able to stay here year ‘round, as more and more of this Bear River parcel’s pasture is productive year ‘round. The benefit is less stress for the animals, moving from place to place.

Jim completes his call and, just to see if I’m paying attention, launches into an impromptu math lesson.

All this for 18 cows, 35 acres, one firebreak, and a skillful partnership with nature’s endless variables. Then it hits me: this is real farming. This is not engineered or freakishly controlling. This is nature calling the shots, testing the resolve of a guy who pets his cows and glues his hat together with duct tape. And I can’t help thinking about a story I saw awhile back in the SF Chron: “Battle Over Slow Food Heats Up in Heartland” by Carolyn Lochhead. If you haven’t already seen this piece, it’s an overview of the controversies that surround Jim’s type of farming.

When I first skimmed it, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. The megafarms are getting bent out of shape over guys like Jim. It seems ridiculous. Of all the assertions in the story, the statement by Deborah Stockton of the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, rings most true for me. “What we are promoting is actually very, very old agriculture, and what’s considered conventional is new” is Stockton’s quote. I’ve heard Jim say exactly the same words when explaining the care he takes in nurturing the pastures that sustain his cattle.

What do you think, readers? This blog is open for your comments. And, while you’re dipping into SF Gate, check out this story about the USDA’s draft document on food safety at meat plants and what it may mean for small operations like Jim’s.

I’ll be writing more about this later, once I check in with Jim for his take on it. Until then, enjoy the pix of farming the way it used to be and, for the time being, still is—thanks to the hard work and resolution of ranchers like Jim Gates.

a good day

lupine

just a sip

Time travel

I thought I had him. Jim, that is.
In his last blog Jim was rattling on about babies in their mothers’ wombs right now that would be born “next year.” Hmmm. In my little mind, I got out the calendar and started wondering about how long gestation is for a cow.  Longer than 12 months? That must be some superbaby cow, and some tired mother. I had called and called Jim to get clarification, but the cell must have been turned off, underwater, or worse.
Surely Jim was wrong. So I did what all writers do: I wrote “around” the unclear point in a way that would protect the innocent.

“Calving year, it’s the calving year!” Jim roared when I did get hold of him after publishing his blog. Got me.

Turns out that at every cattle ranch there is (or should be) an intricate plan for managing the herd according to what the herd needs, and when a rancher talks about “this year” or “next year” he or she is really talking about the reproductive year: the best time for calves to be born so they have the greatest chance to survive and to thrive.

are you my mother?

Keep in mind, too, that Jim’s operation is the antithesis of the factory farm where cows grow up confined and rely on corn and soy for feed. In Jim’s world, the herd is outside all the time, ranging freely, and the feed is pasture grass — with flakes of alfalfa hay to bridge the period when winter grass has frozen and lost nutritional value.
So it’s critical that when babies are born, they have every factor possible working for them and for their mothers. And to that end, timing is everything.

“Everyone believes that babies must be born in the spring. But since the baby doesn’t eat grass for the first month and a half of his life — he lacks the anaerobic bacteria to digest it — it’s better in this Mediterranean climate for the babies to be born in the fall,” Jim says.

Jim is now on a roll.  He’s in his element.  He’s educating someone from the City.

“We need to get babies on the ground before the bad weather gets here. That means our calving year is August 15 to August 14. ‘Next year’ is anytime after August 15,” he explains.
I see. Babies are conceived around November 15 (“this” year), and born nine months later between August 15 and October 1st (“next” year).

you're my mother!

“When they’re born in the fall, they go through winter on their mothers’ milk. When the grass is here in spring, they’re big enough to eat it  and also eat on their mother’s surplus production of milk from the new grass. You can just about stand there and watch them grow right in front of your eyes, they do so well,” he adds.
That’s why Jim is usually running around like a crazy man in the fall, just when you’d think things would be buttoning down for winter. Fall is full of babies. Winter is for mothering, and for walking cows from one end of the pasture to another to manage their use of forage. Spring is for new green grass and as for summer … Summer is fraught with irrigation, irrigation and more irrigation chores, 18-hour days, and miles and miles of racing across warm green hillsides on the tractor.
It’s not your normal calendar. It’s not your normal cattle ranch, if you go by the numbers of cows raised on CAFOs (Concentrated/Confined Animal Feeding Operations) vs. the number raised like this.
And above all, it’s not your normal rancher. It’s Jim Gates, the guy who’s already mentally in “next” year this year, and planning for next next year this year.  Make sense?
See you next time, this year, then next year later this year.

Oh, by the way, here’s a link on CAFO farming. Jim says it has so much interesting stuff in it “you can read ’till your eyeballs fall out.” Thanks, Jim.

Sound bite

What’s wrong with these pictures? OK, another city-ish question, but I still have to ask: with so much brilliant green grass covering the hills like velvet, why are these cows so interested in dry alfalfa flakes? Jim, a walking compendium of all things cow, is only too happy to oblige an answer.

caught me with my mouth full!

breakfast

To maintain herself at this time of  year, he explains, a cow needs three things: nourishment for herself, nourishment to produce the milk for her nursing baby, and nourishment to come into heat and conceive her next baby. Satisfying all three needs requires about 20 pounds of feed every day, but at this time of year that feed can’t be grass alone. Why? Because right now and for about the next two months or so, the new winter grass consists of nearly 98% water and not enough nutritional value.

“If the cows were left just with the natural forage, only very few would conceive. They wouldn’t have enough energy to produce milk for the babies at their sides. And older cows that are short of teeth would starve because there’s just not enough nutrition to keep them alive, ” Jim explains.

So how does Jim select the alfalfa he feeds? Turns out that, just like my screen, alfalfa hay is wysiwyg: what you see is what you get.

“I can tell just by looking at and feeling the hay, how much gross energy and gross protein it contains. From the color, the smell, and the feel I can tell how it was grown and how it was put up,” Jim says. And what’s he looking for? Small stems, good green color, an absence of mold, and lots of leaves. If the alfalfa is too “stemmy,” the cow can’t get the nutrition she needs. (To get a grip on this all-important stem-to-leaf ratio, check out this study by the USDA/University of Wisconsin: “Harvest-Fractionation of Alfalfa.” Or just call Jim.)

With about 180 animals in the herd at the Trabucco ranch (where we are right now), you can do the math to get an idea of this chore’s scope— 3600 pounds of hay have to be doled out each and every day at this location alone. But over the years, Jim’s developed an exquisitely efficient way of accomplishing the task: he throttles down to first gear, steps out of the pilot’s seat, and lets the tractor from hell wander the field as he tosses out the bright green flakes.

As the flakes land, the cattle, who’ve streamed over the hill to meet us,  mosey up to their feed in companionable groups. There’s no competition and no stress. Just the sound of munching.

And that reminds me, I’m hungry. I need breakfast, too, and my morning cappuccino. See you later.