A SNOHOMISH COUNTY ALMANAC

In A Sand County Almanac, Leopold boasts that:

There are two kinds of hunting: ordinary hunting, and ruffed-grouse hunting.  There are two places to hunt grouse: ordinary places, and Adams County.

He goes on to expound the particulars of what makes for an extraordinary ruffed-grouse hunt.  The attributes are unique and cherished by the writer in much the same way as all of us come to covet a place where we hunted, and then caught our prize: be it a pumpkin, mountain peak, ten pound fish, patch of mushrooms, good deal on a purchase, parking spot, breathtaking photo, sunset, or a Buck deer.  We remember.

We remember because we are all hunters.  Hunting is instinctual and undeniable.  Prehistorically, it kept us alive.  Now, it enables us to thrive.

Unfortunately, “hunting”, in today’s world seems synonymous with killing.  Although Leopold began his journal entry boasting of hunting grouse, he dedicated most of his October journal entry describing what he observed, thought, experienced, and never mentioned a shot bird.  Yet in today’s increasingly urban landscape, we’ve over emphasized the final act.  Perhaps our snap-shot focused society has mislead us all into thinking that is what it’s all about: the trophy picture.

Taking a step back, obviously, it’s not.  Contrary to the image above, I believe it’s mostly about the stories.  Perhaps this is the excuse of a hunting failure.  I admit to being a very unsuccessful deer killer, yet when I trudge up through the Ponderosa Pine, Douglas and Grand Fir forests of the east Cascade Mountains, I run into a fair amount of deer.

Literally, once a good sized Buck ran straight into me, and though I could of reached out and scratched his ears; I drew back my bow string, and with arrow poised for a shot, watched it shamelessly clatter off my sights with the rhythm of my pounding heart.  Spooked, the animal stopped still, its ears perked, and keyed into my camouflaged hide-out.  From the thicket I can’t imagine what it thought as it tried to reason out what creature made such sounds?  During the adrenaline rushed seconds, I strained from the tension of the taught bow string while flicking–and failing–to get the arrow shaft back on to the sights.  It was too much for the frightened beast, and as I finally let out a labored breath, it blew out a warning snort and bounded away.

No deer this year, nor the last, yet that year I did manage to score some half-dollar sized blisters.  “The big bucks are above the tree line,”  I heard.  So I trudged up Dirtyface Mountain and after what seemed like a hundred switchbacks and equal amount of doe deer (which you cannot shoot), I made camp to get out of the cold and rain and patch my heels.  Long hours were spent in my tent eating nuts and staying warm.  Finally, after two days of “hunting”, I quit the high elevation wilds, and walked back down the mountain, only to find one slinking six-pointer cross in front of my car as I drove through a neighborhood.

Needless to say, after a few seasons of trying, I never killed a deer, but I’m a good hunter and an okay story teller.

“A Hunter with a Heart”

In Julianne Lutz Warren’s biographical tribute, Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey, she summarizes some of Leopold’s thoughts on hunting in Chapter 9: Wildlife and the New Man.  Among many quoted gems within the essay, Warren consolidated Leopold’s idea of a Sportsman as a “civilized” hunter.  Adding: “He was “a hunter with a heart,” one who realized that “his power to destroy carries with it [or] places upon him the responsibility to conserve.”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not my aim here to justify hunting, or even try to bridge an understanding of whether it is necessary or irrelevant.  What I hope to get across is the importance of hunting in my ecological, conservation-based education.  Without it, I do not think I would have a balanced understanding and appreciation for wildlife.  Sadly, by taking beauty from Nature I realized how much more precious it is to keep creatures in the skies, streams, and forests.

Like many of my arguments, I seem to only evade, squirm, and then tentatively stand on righteous quicksand.  Not because I lack moral compass, but rather I do not wish to be yours.  Temperance is a tepid voice.  In a time when politics are polar, belief is violent, and everyone is either “us” or “them”, the mighty middle, the silent majority, just wants to do good work.

For now, my work is in the fields or in the mountains.  I wear work or hiking boots and carry pruners or a camera.  My rifle remains in the gun safe.  Never fired and maybe never will be, yet I don’t plan on preventing a young student of Nature from having that opportunity.   If so, I think we’d deny good people the chance of being nurtured by the land.  We may even repress the Hunter and, in turn, find him elsewhere and unwanted.

Preservation, Conservation, Recreation

A last thought I’d like to share is how hunters often defend that which they aim to kill, and moreover, the land and habitat that animals depend on.  Steven Rinella wrote a short piece for Outside Magazine‘s November 2018 issue.  In This Land is OUR Land, Steven reminds us of our common ground in that we all protect public lands for mutual benefit.  Whether you’re a backpacker, fly fisherman, mountain biker, or naturalist, all parties should galvanize around issues and places we value, because extreme forces would like divide the land for private, restricted ownership, and overexploitation.

This equal access is only possible with the Mighty Middle.  Yet, it’s also a messy middle as Freedom is messy.  We all have a moral compass, it’s just not everyone’s on the same heading.  So have a little understanding and appreciation for the next person.  Try to relate with what others value and figure out how we all can experience our passion.

Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear of what you will do to it, or with it.  And I know many pleasant things it will do to you.  Aldo Leopold, “Wherefore Wildlife Ecology?”

With that in mind, below is an excerpt from the USDA Forest Service’s webpage:  “What We Believe.”

Motto: Caring for the Land and Serving People

The phrase, “Caring for the Land and Serving People,” captures the Forest Service mission. As set forth in law, the mission is to achieve quality land management under the sustainable multiple-use management concept to meet the diverse needs of people: It includes:

• Advocating a conservation ethic in promoting the health, productivity, diversity, and beauty of forests and associated lands.
• Listening to people and responding to their diverse needs in making decisions.
• Protecting and managing the National Forests and Grasslands so they best demonstrate the sustainable multiple-use management concept.
  Providing technical and financial assistance to State and private forest landowners, encouraging them to practice good stewardship and quality land management in meeting their specific objectives.
• Providing technical and financial assistance to cities and communities to improve their natural environment by planting trees and caring for their forests.
• Providing international technical assistance and scientific exchanges to sustain and enhance global resources and to encourage quality land management.
• Helping States and communities to wisely use the forests to promote rural economic development and a quality rural environment.
• Developing and providing scientific and technical knowledge aimed at improving our capability to protect, manage, and use forests and rangelands.
• Providing work, training, and education to the unemployed, underemployed, elderly, youth, and disadvantaged in pursuit of our mission.

Not bad.  The government gets a bum rap, (lately it seems, by its own constituents), but what’s above lies at the heart of what they, (and possibly Leopold), try to accomplish.  So support their mission, and support individuals and groups that want to keep public lands public.

Harvest Time

Surprisingly, about every time I work, feed, and walk with the cows, I think of their mortality.  Specifically, the dichotomy between our raising and caring for them, and our annual culling of the herd.  Although this will be our eighth year, it is never easy.

If I had been raised on a farm perhaps the reality of give and take would be inherent like a matter of the seasons, but I wasn’t.  Food came in boxes, bags, and shiny wrappers.  Much of it was processed.  Made in some far off factory on the outskirts of a city, or small rural town.  Food didn’t have a face or soul; it didn’t have a personality; it didn’t have a name.  Well, not entirely true, much it did have names with Super, Fruity, Chef, or Uncle. Come to think of it, food HAD a personality . . . It was a cartoon bird with a colored beak, a talking bottle of syrup, a dancing oven mitt, or lovable doughboy.  None of these adorable mascots were ever “harvested” or, even worse, “butchered”.  They always returned, day after day, and proclaimed “Eat me!”

But we didn’t.  They were too cute and practically a part of the family.  We did however indulge in what the pusher-puppet was pushing, and it was guilt free (minus those nutrient deficient calories).  Sometimes we even committed an odd cannibalistic crossover and ate meat if it was advertised by a funny cartoon animal of the same species.

Oh, ignorance IS bliss.  Keep your characters in the TV box, food in a styrofoam box, and farm animals in a box; preferably one like a picture frame with a pastoral fantasy of a big red barn, cows munching grass, and a rooster on a fence post.  Real life is different, and for close to a decade, I stopped eating meat because the reality of mainstream meat is so disconnected from what we think we are eating.

It is not my intent to describe the meat industry, nor do I feel it necessary to condone their actions.  Simply put, it’s consumer driven.  Want a fast burger?  Go down the chain and find your link.  Want a burger and the knowledge of how it (the cow/steer) was birthed, fed, treated, and finally harvested?  Find a small beef rancher.  Most likely, they’ll be a family farm who knows their animals.  They will have names for some, if not all, and when it comes time to reduce the herd, they will take cattle that have a name and a history.

“How can you do that?  I couldn’t.”  My aunt once asked with less concern for an answer and more to claim her high moral ground.  She is not the first person to interject this type of poison into what is already a difficult decision–a farmer’s guilt doubled with friend’s and family’s derision.  How ludicrous?  To think the responsible person carries the conscience of all.  And how I did enjoy her Holiday golden, foil-wrapped Honey Baked Ham.

How CAN you do that?  Not easily.  The answer is not a concrete moral high ground, but rather a moral quagmire.  I wrestle with it, and the reasons differ from the point of view of the questioner.  Beef has its issues, yet on our farm it pairs well with what we have and we want to accomplish.  For starters, it’s a hay farm on a floodplain.  In this combination we avoid two simple losses.  Loss of topsoil by annual plowing for cereal grains or legumes, and loss of nutrients by repeated harvest of grass.  Cows keep the land intact and they refertilize the soil with their manure.  But sometimes too much of a good thing is too much, so we remove animals every year in order to balance what the land can handle.

Game managers refer to this as a carrying capacity.  The idea that a forest or rangeland has the ability to sustain only a certain amount of wildlife, etc.  On forty acres we “carry” around 14 cattle through the lean winter, with roughly 18 during the lush summer.  For now this seems to work, yet there still exists the matter of removing four animals from our care.

Stepping back with the naïveté of the most well intentioned animal rights activist, imagine our herd free to reproduce and multiply without intervention.  After a few years of calving, our girls and boy (Red, Shannon, Clover, Cinnamon, Molly, and Puck respectively), would be hungry because the land would be overgrazed from too many stomachs (ruminant humor).  Eventually, with a lack of suitable forage, animals would die from starvation or fall prey to coyotes.

Sure, this is apocalyptic farmer talk, but the picture wouldn’t be pretty and it’s not something I wish to have any of our cows go through.  Rather, once a year, on a random morning, we set out some hay for the herd.  Let them calmly eat, while life quickly leaves a few of them.  In minutes it’s done.  By now the rest of cows are spooked and confused.  Me too, as farmer, executioner, and now turned savior, I lead them out to the safety of a far pasture where fresh grass awaits.

Closing the gate behind them I call, “It’s alright girls.  It’s over.  Sorry.”  And I am.

*                    *                     *                     *                   *                    *                *

As a post script, I’d like to add a few descriptions of what follows the . . . killing.  (Not a word I like, but I feel it’s more to the point and more responsible than “harvest”.)  We take three to four animals a year and provide beef for close to a dozen families.  All of the consumable parts are taken off site by the butcher.  We keep as much of what remains as possible and eventually return it to the fields as compost.  The goal is to keep the circle of life intact; and thus, our cows thrive and survive almost (other than salt blocks) entirely from our farm.

Whereas, after a couple of weeks of curing, the beef sides are cut and wrapped by a (very) small town butcher for our clients.  These families go to the store and pick up their meat, which is frozen in cuts and sizes of their choosing.  The package is austere, white paper with a red print that reads: “Ground Beef”, “Beef Chuck Roast”, or “Tenderloin”.  No frills, no cartoon, no catchy jingle, no mockery of a life ended, but rather a simple truth and, eventually, a reverent meal with friends and family.

There are moments or places where one feels blessed and thankful to be alive.  One of mine is swimming in the Snohomish River.  It is a summer tonic, an invigorating bath, and daily baptism.  Even though I hardly stay in the cold, mountain fed waters for long, there is a feeling of absolution after jumping in.  If a polar bear plunge kicks off a New Year, then a summer swim solidifies the resolution.

Surprisingly, it is rare for locals to swim in the river. I know of no other nearby family or person who regularly takes a plunge in the clear, summer water.  We occasionally see a boater or jet-ski ply the water, yet even these watercraft recreationalists hardly get their feet wet.  To them, the river is more of a medium or surface for joy rather than a pleasure in of itself.  Instinctively, I get it.  Creature comfort comes from staying on top of the water not in it.  Our lizard brain calls out, “I could die in there!”  And it’s right, yet that reptilian reaction thinks too much and sometimes we need drop a Class and get in touch with our amphibian roots.

Occasionally, my bewilderment at what my neighbors are missing out on has gotten the better of me, and I’ve asked, “What’s wrong with you?  Sorry, I mean why don’t you swim in the river?”  Their answers–no surprise–are based on expected discomfort and real, albeit unlikely, danger of the current and cold temperature.  Some locals, of multiple generations, even say it’s too polluted. “Don’t you know they dump sh*t in there.”

 

 

Yes, we know, and better than most.  It so happens that the previous owner of our farm treated the river as his personal landfill.  Tractors, implements, tires, pipes, bottles, wire, plates, and livestock meds were all dumped in the tidal influx of the riverbank.

It’s a sad truth about farmers, and human society in general.  We treat water, especially rivers, like a sewer system.  Quick to wash our hands of life’s dirty deeds: out of sight, out of mind.  On the Snohomish, affluent enters the stream via city, treatment plant overflows, breaches and leaks from an agricultural slurry pond (A large pool of collected waste; usually from a dairy farm with a 100+ cattle held in relative confinement), and runoff from animals (including humans) defecating in close proximity to water.

Listing a few of the possible source contaminants almost makes me feel like swimming may not be such a great idea after all, yet isn’t that the real shame of it?  That we’ve slowly ruined our water quality and, consequentially, our perception of it.  Here in lies the lasting damage.  Over time, water can take away waste by dilution, filtration, and deposition, yet it cannot wash away a society’s delusion that it is dirty and not worthy or respect or reverence, and thus, we continue to spoil what remains.

It’s ironic that many faiths believe water and rivers can cleanse one’s soul to the point where they are born again, or washed of sin, as these very rivers are now some of the most polluted in the world.  Are we blind to the contradiction?  Are we blind to the correlation?  Are we destined to wash ourselves and find salvation in our own polluted feedback loop.  Or, can we truly be blessed and purify both?

I remain optimistic and cannot give up hope that we can keep water clean.  We have to.  There is no “special interest” in water.  There is no separate water system like bottled water, or us versus them scenario where that stream is gross, but not mine.  It affects us all; it is our body, sustenance, spirit, and life.  We cannot wash our hands of it or be born again when its very essence is vile.

So take action.  Do the little things that make a difference.  For instance, buy products that are biodegradable and not toxic.  Think before you pour it down the drain.  Keep your fuel tanks and engines, septic tanks and sewer lines, and pets and personal waste contained and in good working order.  Support companies and farms that use natural or organic chemicals, fertilizers, and pesticides (or better yet, don’t use them).  Defend the Clean Water Act and help make it stronger.  And most importantly, go swimming!

The Snohomish River is still clean and safe for swimming.  Fortunately, because its length and drainage basin size, there is not a huge amount of area for development and pollution.  However, late summer months like August have the highest percentage of waste due to livestock and the paucity of rain.  Keeping animals out of the river and adjacent streams would improve this factor.

Check out: http://www.outdoorswimmingsociety.com, http://www.worldoceanobservatory.org, and http://www.cleanwateraction.org for inspiration.

 

Forty acres is plenty.  I used to think a hundred or so would be marvelous: some pasture land, forest, and, ideally, waterfront on a lake or river . . . Perfect.  I imagined the land would take care of itself, and native plants and animals would flourish in a refuge of untouched splendor.  All Nature needed was for humans to stop meddling and balance would be restored.

Perhaps this is true. Given time, (much more than my lifetime), the tide and seasonal floods would return to the fields and drown out ill adapted grasses, shrubs, and trees. In place of pasture grass: cedar, spruce, crabapple, alder, and a myriad of other vegetation would carpet the river valley.  As the tended grass diminished, so too would the horse and cow fade away and be replaced by deer and bear.  In this temperate forest, the iconic salmon could return and spawn in waters that are cool and clear. Instead of a rooster’s call, bird song would spring from the fern fronds and rain down from the canopy.

Ahh . . . Paradise.

But then again, the land might be overwhelmed in a sea of reed canary grass, Japanese knotweed, and Himalayan blackberry.  These introduced species dominate the forgotten corners and neglected hedgerows of my neighborhood.  If it weren’t for diligent maintenance, they would outcompete the native plant species I’ve purposefully planted, such is their tenacity.  I find it hard to imagine what and how many animals might call this triad habitat.  Furthermore, the waterways might choke from the mats of canary grass, clumps of knotweed, and thorny thread of blackberry. (For a time, the beaver, however, would have dam excellent material!)  Already many of our river and stream banks in Snohomish County are braced we these exotics, as they thrive in the region’s wet conditions.

Which brings me to the last case scenario, we’re under water.  Based on Surging Seas Risk Finder, much of our farm may be coastal.  A one foot rise above the high tide mark floods over ninety percent of our fields.  Even at current tides levels, I have seen my back pasture and hayfield flood when the drainage district’s tide gate was stuck open from a log jam.  And this is just under normal tidal conditions.  In the event of the river flooding, much, if not all of our farm could be inundated.  With such frequent wet soil and intrusion from the Puget Sound, the land would become more estuarine, and vegetation would consist of small shrubs, sedges, rushes, and saltwater tolerant grasses.  Shorebirds and waterfowl–not cattle, sheep, or poultry–might call our acreage pasture.

In this last future, forty acres is surely enough, but is it?

To lose?  Yes. Yet, if it’s come to that, if climate change and subsequent sea level has altered the landscape so drastically, is it enough to make a difference?  How much land cultivated, conserved, restored, or given up is enough to set the balance straight?  Do the scales of Nature even work that way?

No they don’t, but unfortunately, human societies do, and we often mitigate the Environment, our Environment, like an amputee.  Just how much can we cut off, pollute, deforest, or plow under before it’s too much?

It’s as if our planet is a game of Jenga and we’re all pulling out the bricks and stacking them higher for the next player, the next generation.  When is this tower of ignorance going to topple?  We think, Hopefully not on my turn, as the aquifer drains, the coral bleaches, the rainforest burns, and the air is made toxic.  Another brick is pulled from the puzzle.  It shakes, sways, yet stands.  Ahh, a collective sigh.  We’re still in the game.

As a species we are still in the game, yet in my opinion we are losing faster than we are gaining.  Don’t let your blip of existence and innovation fool you–much is lost and gone forever.  For instance the extinction rate, determined by http://www.biologicaldiversity.org to have a natural rate of one to five species/YEAR, is now 1,000 to 10,000 times that, meaning we’re losing five to ten species/DAY!

Out of the many worries associated with the planet, I highlight species loss because of it’s relevance to my agricultural experience and pertinence with current events.  In the September issue of National Geographic, (Yes, this is the July post.  Forgive me, I’m a little behind.), Daisy Chung and Michael Greshko report on the “Silent Spring on the Farm”.  In the article they document bird loss on European farmland since 1980.  Not surprisingly, with increased agricultural cultivation, mono cropping, and pesticide use, avian habitat and food sources have gone down dramatically.  In most cases, multiple species of birds are declining except a few types of generalist birds. (These, I imagine, are like the European Starling, Pigeon, and Sparrow that seem so at home at bird feeders, chicken coops, granaries, and other human dominated environments.)

Species diversity requires farm diversity.

Ten years ago we took over 40 acres of grass.  The first time I mowed the hay, I couldn’t tell where the field ended and my lawn began.  (If it weren’t for the levee I might drive clear into the river.)  I don’t remember much of the wildlife, because there wasn’t much to see. Animal life is dependent on plant life and we had a corresponding array of life to match our grass.  For example, we had cows.

Now, I look out the window and I can’t see my hayfields or the river, but I can see small thickets of Willow, Alder, Black-twinberry, Indian Plum, and Vine Maple to name a few.  I can see a Sharp-shinned Hawk, Bewick’s Wren, Cedar Waxwing, Rufous Hummingbird, and other birds perusing the rich layers of vegetation.  Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of a long-tailed weasel, mink, or hear a barn owl screech overhead.  Granted I lost a fraction of my “crop”, yet we benefit from the wind break, shade, fruit, cross pollination, and peace of mind that it fosters life rather than diminishes it.

Really that’s what it all comes down to.  Sure, we’re pulling a brick from under the tower: the land is still worked with tractors, the cows are harvested, the fruit picked, but it’s coming out slowly.  And in its stead, filling the void, are thousands of planted natives, no pesticides, and over two dozen varieties of “shared” animal food.

Forty acres is plenty.  I have some pasture land, forest, and waterfront on a river . . . Perfect.  I imagine the land would take care of itself, and native plants and animals would flourish in a refuge of untouched splendor.  BUT UNFORTUNATELY IT DOESN’T. In this case, Nature needs a lot of human meddling for balance to be restored.

Enjoy a listen of an Avian orchestra below.

With every post I reflect and draw inspiration from the monthly writings of A Sand County Almanac.  Rereading June, I can’t help but think of my brother.  It’s not my intent to get personal, yet it feels false to drum up inspiration when Leopold’s entry reminds me of loss.  And that’s why I cherish June; it helped me understand and give voice–I read it at my brother’s funeral–to life’s subtleties.  Even today, 15 years later, it continues to read like an allegory on the meaning of life.

I cannot help feeling a little omniscient posting the “meaning of life”, but it’s there and I recommend everyone read June, and read it again.  Set aside some time.  Let your trout line and fly dry in the afternoon air.  Five minutes should do.  Then–for prudence sake–a little longer.

I shall now confess to you that none of those three trout had to be beheaded, or folded double, to fit their casket.  What was big was not the trout, but the chance.  What was full was not my creel, but my memory.  Like the white-throats, I had forgotten it would ever again be aught but morning on the fork.  –Aldo Leopold