Monday, March 4, 2024

Springtime Already?!


Last spring, as we were adjusting to the realities of Sami’s glioblastoma diagnosis - to treatment schedules, symptom management, the possibility of enrolling in a clinical trial at UCSF, and to preparing our home for Sami’s eventual incapacity - I wrote that time was not behaving normally. This week - nearly seven months after Sami’s passing, time continues to operate inconsistently. Last night, as I was walking back from the barn after feeding the mules and gathering eggs, I realized springtime was quickly approaching (indeed, it was already here). The days are again getting longer. The grass is growing. The ewes are finished lambing. How could all of this be, with Sami gone from the world?


As I look back at the seven months without Sami, I’m struck by the paradox of feeling like I’ve been incredibly busy while standing perfectly still. After Sami passed, I helped Emma move back to Idaho to start her junior year of college. I went to Sonora twice to see family. I drove to Siskiyou County to help a colleague with a workshop. I filled my deer tag in Colfax. I traveled back to Moscow for Emma’s logging sports competition, and later to Las Cruces to see Lara. We planned and held a Celebration of Life for Sami, and then went to Monterey for Christmas. In the new year, I traveled to Denver, Moscow (again), and Sparks, Nevada. I turned the rams in with the ewes in September, harvested my finished lambs in October, and lambed out the ewes in January and February. I bought a sawmill and started learning to use it. During that timeframe, I also worked on setting Sami’s financial and business affairs. Thankfully, the estate planning we’d done made this job easier, but I still needed to meet with attorneys, bankers, and accountants (not to mention DMV) during the fall months. This week, I reached out to our CPA about our 2023 taxes.


I’m normally very in tune with the changing seasons. I always look forward to the first day in August that feels as though fall is approaching. The day I turn the rams in with the ewes feels like the first day of the Sheep New Year - followed shortly thereafter by the appearance of Sandhill cranes flying south. As late September gives way to October, the cooler nights make me think of hunting. The shorter days and longer nights of November and December mean Christmas and the Solstice are approaching; my tradition of maintaining my wood-handled tools on New Year’s Eve makes me feel like I’m ready for a new year of working outdoors. And lambing usually coincides with the northward return of the cranes. 


Looking back now, I feel like the seasons changed without me this year - disconcerting and reassuring at the same time. I noticed all of these things, I think, as they were happening, but I feel a bit like I’m waking up again after sleepwalking my way through winter. Also, while the list above suggests that I’ve been busy, I feel like there are many chores I’ve been avoiding. Last weekend, I finally cleaned the far side of the dining table, where all of the leftover cups, plates, and supplies from Sami’s Celebration had been sitting since December. The desk in the kitchen, however, is still a disaster - piled high with unread books, notecards, and hats that I’ve worn off and on all winter. The garage is similarly disheveled.


Some of why I kept so busy over the last seven months, I suspect, was a way to avoid feeling sad. On the other hand, I realized this week (again) that I’d been grieving since late January 2023, when we learned that Sami had a mass on her brain. In my cleaning frenzy over the weekend, I found the pocket notebooks I’d kept during Sami’s treatment, along with a notebook that Sami kept early on in the process (while she was still able to take notes). Glancing through these, I realized how heavily the uncertainty and anxiety weighed on all of us. Perhaps what seemed like sleepwalking has really been my internal processing of everything that happened to us. Rather than observing the world around me (which has been a lifelong habit), I’ve been reflecting on my internal landscape.


Recently, this inward focus has resulted in some external brain fog, I think. I find myself missing meetings, or mixing up dates. I know I’ve been a frustrating colleague because of this - I’m frustrated with myself. But I seem to need to look inward at the moment, sometimes to the exclusion of anything else.


Indeed, much of my inward focus has been on reliving the 202 days between Sami’s first symptoms and her eventual passing. While we were living through that period of time, I was concentrating on one crisis after another - surgery, recovery, another surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, doctor’s visits. I’m realizing now that my introspection is part of my process of making sense of what just occurred.


As I was considering whether to accept a job transfer back to the counties where my family lives, my sister told me she thought I was courageous for even considering such a move. At about the same time, a bereavement counselor provided by Hospice suggested that making big decisions within a year of a loss like ours was inadvisable. Last week, I read that “courage is the ability to experience fear but not be overwhelmed by it.” As I’ve thought about these last few weeks, I’ve decided that I don’t feel particularly courageous. While Sami was sick, I simply tried to do what needed to be done. Now that she’s gone, I’ve simply tried to put one foot in front of the other. Some days I succeed; some days I don’t move at all (or at least I feel that way).


Late last week, I spoke with the counselor again. We talked about the concept of moving forward versus moving “on” from grief. I know there are people in my circle who think I need to move on - but (as I’ve written often since last August), moving on from 35 years of relationship doesn’t feel right to me. My relationship with Sami will always be part of who I am - in working to move forward, I feel like I need to be able to carry that part of who I am (and who we were) with me. But I also realized last week that I’m still searching for direction - in which direction does “forward” lie? I’m hoping that my move to be closer to family, to a job that allows me to refocus on my curiosity and teaching ability (rather than my administrative responsibilities), will provide some direction. In the meantime, I am trying to enjoy the signs of spring - the daffodils blooming and the lilac buds swelling, the sounds of nuthatches in the blue oaks when I take my morning walk, the gamboling lambs in my sheep pasture. Some days this is easy to do; some days I still fail to see these things entirely.




Tuesday, February 27, 2024

From OUR to MY

During the Holidays, I jokingly told my coworkers that I couldn’t host a party because a bachelor had moved into my house. At the risk of perpetuating gender roles, what I really meant was that my house was in no condition to host guests because I hadn’t kept it as clean as Sami and I generally did together. To be fair (to myself), this reflected a loss of the division of labor we enjoyed during our marriage! And also to be fair (to both of us), neither Sami nor I were ever great housekeepers! But since Sami’s passing, I’ve also realized that I’ve become uncertain about when to use the words “we,” “our,” and “us” versus “I,” “my,” and “me.”


As a married couple, Sami and I both had possessions and activities that were our own, as well as possessions and activities that were ours together. I drove MY truck to check on MY sheep. Sami hauled HER mule in HER horse trailer. I took MY rifle to go hunting, hoping for venison to fill OUR freezer. Sami used HER power tools to make repairs in OUR barn. But the house was OURS - the place where we raised OUR daughters. I took care of OUR yard; Sami did OUR grocery shopping.


Since August, though, I’ve struggled with whether I should say, “I’m going to visit our (or my) daughter,” or “We’re (I’m) so proud of Emma and Lara.” Should I say “our” mules? Or “my” mules? After 33 years of “we,” I find that saying “I” is difficult.


Some things now, obviously, are purely mine - MY laundry, MY garbage, MY shopping list. Some of these had been mine even before Sami got sick - for example, when Emma left for college, I started doing my own laundry (I think Sami was happy not to mix my sheepy-smelling clothes with hers). Some became purely mine as the only person in the house - I generate half of the garbage that we generated before. Some I’m learning how to do - shopping for one is much different than shopping for two.


But most of what’s important to me remains OURS. Lara and Emma will always be OUR daughters. The people who have been so supportive throughout this process will always be OUR friends (even if they were originally Sami’s friends, or mine). The house I’m sitting in as I write this is OUR house, filled with OUR furniture. And with OUR memories.


This realization makes my decision to sell this house and move closer to MY family difficult in some ways. The house I move to will be MINE (our perhaps OURS - I find myself considering how Lara and Emma will like the homes I’ve looked at, but that’s a slightly different OURS). For my daughters, I’m sure, it will be difficult not to come home to the house in which they grew up. As much as we say home is not so much a physical structure as a place in our hearts, not returning to their own rooms will be hard.


Finally, even though OURS, US, and WE is still in my vocabulary, I stumble on these words. They remind me that I’m on my own now. They remind me that while I’ll always be Sami’s husband, and Lara and Emma’s dad, that I’m also someone different now. I’ve always been ME, but for 35 years, I was also US.

Thursday, February 22, 2024

More Changes Ahead

Cross-posted and adapted from my Ranching in the Sierra Foothills blog... 

As anyone who has read this blog at all in the last 12 months knows, 2023 was an incredibly difficult year for my family and me. My wife of 33 years, Samia, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer last February. After two surgeries, chemo- and radiation-therapy, and an extended stay in the hospital at UCSF, she passed away at home in mid-August.

Despite the enormity of my family's loss, we have been so fortunate to be part of the foothill agricultural community. Family, friends, colleagues, and even folks we barely knew, offered support throughout last year – my freezers were full of food, my woodshed was full of firewood, and my barn was full of hay.  I am humbled. Thank you.

All of which makes the decision I recently made even more difficult. One of the things I realized during Sami's illness was how important it was to do everything I could to allow her to be home as long as possible (in her case, ultimately until the very end). While I'm fortunate that my own parents are still living in the house in which I grew up (in Sonora, California), I have realized that being even just three hours away presented a challenge with respect to helping them.

In January, my livestock and natural resources colleague in the Central Sierra UC Cooperative Extension office (covering El Dorado County south to Tuolumne County), Dr. Flavie Audoin, left to become the Assistant Specialist in Plant-Herbivore Interactions and Targeted Grazing at the University of Arizona – her dream job! At my request, UCCE is facilitating my transfer to the Central Sierra region effective October 1, 2024. UCCE will also refill my position here (covering Placer, Nevada, Sutter, and Yuba Counties) – hopefully before I leave.

As you might imagine, this has not been an easy decision. I've lived in Placer County for 30 years; Samia and I raised our children in Auburn, and I've had the good fortune to work with and become part of an incredible farming and ranching community here. But I'm also grateful that UCCE is providing me with the opportunity to come back to the part of the foothills where I grew up – to continue doing work that I love while being closer to my family.

In my seven years as a livestock and natural resources advisor here in Placer-Nevada-Sutter-Yuba, I have focused my research and extension programs on livestock-predator interactions, drought management and disaster resilience, targeted grazing systems, rangeland prescribed fire, and economic sustainability. While many of these issues are relevant to ranchers and land managers throughout the Sierra region, I look forward to working with the ranching community in Central Sierra to better understand their specific priorities and needs. And I will continue to share information on ranching topics through my Ranching in the Sierra Foothills blog and our Sheep Stuff Ewe Should Know podcast. So, while my home office (and my home base) will change, I look forward to remaining a part of the larger Sierra Nevada ranching and rangeland communities.

In the meantime, my extension and research work will go on – we have workshops on fire, agricultural technology, and sheep health management planned through the spring and early summer. Our Tahoe Cattlemen's Association Spring Ranch Tour is set for May 4 (stay tuned for details!). We have targeted grazing workshops and research projects on tap. If you'd like more information about any of this, please contact me at dmacon@ucanr.edu!

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Doldrums

February has probably always been my least favorite winter month - a colder, drearier July (my least favorite summer month). In January, I’m still basking in the glow of the holidays. In March, the onset of spring is evident. February’s only redeeming qualities are the Presidents Day holiday and new lambs. Thankfully, it’s a short month!

This February seems especially dreary. A year ago, Sami had her second craniotomy, and we finally learned that the “mass” on her brain was indeed glioblastoma. And six months ago, Sami passed. Last month, I got to see both of our daughters at the Society for Range Management conference in Reno. This month, I’m back to coming home each night to an empty house.


Dictionary.com defines doldrums as “a state of inactivity or stagnation” - pretty much how I feel at the moment. I feel old - widower is a term that feels old. I feel listless - I come home from work thinking I should work on cleaning the house or cook a hearty dinner. Some nights I do; mostly, I seem to collapse into my recliner after a simple meal. And wake up the next morning to do it all again.


But today, a seed catalog showed up in my mailbox. March - and springtime - is around the corner. And then April and garden-planting time. Not to mention baseball on the radio. And trout season. The sweet spot in the sheep year is approaching - after all the lambs are born but before I need to irrigate. Maybe next week, I’ll get caught up on dusting, mopping, and cleaning the bathrooms.


I’m grateful that there are only 12 more days this month. Grief and loss, at least for me, seems to intensify my emotions - especially my lows. February is always a low point - even more so this year.

Monday, February 12, 2024

Lambing Alone


Throughout our 33 years of marriage, Sami and I both had our own separate professional pursuits. She was always a veterinarian and a mom. I was an agricultural lobbyist, a land trust executive director, a USDA employee, a land trust executive (again), a farmers market vegetable grower, a firewood cutter, and, ultimately, a shepherd. And, certainly, a dad! But we both had our separate things - we parented together, but we worked (largely) separately. Except at lambing time.


Sami, I think, always viewed my sheep herding aspirations somewhat skeptically. Like me, she loved raising livestock. Unlike me, she had a clear understanding of what it would take to make a living at it. Ultimately, she was right - I never did achieve a scale of operation sufficient to make a decent living solely from raising sheep. Her realism ultimately resulted in my returning to school for a masters degree - and my eventual landing in cooperative extension. And it seemed, once I realized my sheep raising habit could be a part-time gig, she embraced the idea of co-owning Flying Mule Sheep Company!


But from the point where we established our small-scale commercial sheep enterprise, Sami was in charge of raising bottle lambs. She loved animals, and she especially loved baby animals. Even before we dove into the sheep business, we (mostly she) raised a bottle calf that our friends Jack and Darcy Hanson gave us! She named him Brutus!


(Memories are interesting things, aren’t they - I distinctly remember meeting Jack and Darcy in Dutch Flat to pick up the calf (probably in 1994 or 1995). As I drove the stretch of I-80 between Auburn and Dutch Flat last week, I recalled hauling Brutus in a big dog crate in the back of my old Ford.)


We bought 27 ewes in 2005, breeding them to lamb in February and March of 2006. We grazed them at Loma Rica Ranch in Grass Valley - and it seemed to snow every two weeks during our entire 8-week lambing season. On March 17, we had our first bottle lamb - a ram lamb that the women in my office named Patrick (it was St. Patrick’s Day, after all). I can’t remember why he had to come home (probably because his mother couldn’t count to one), but I do remember Sami bottle-feeding him every 3 hours for that first week. And I remember how much Lara and Emma loved having a lamb in the house!


Over the years, Sami developed her own system for raising bummers. If they were cold, they’d go under the wood stove wrapped in a warm towel and atop a heating pad. Many nights, we’d go to bed with a half-dead lamb on the hearth, only to wake up to the lamb walking around the living room squawking for its mother. She would go out of her way to get raw sheep’s milk or goat’s milk rather than use milk replacer. And she would name them all - Patrick was the first, but by no means the last bummer who earned a name.


This lambing season, I’m on my own for the first time. Yesterday, during my evening check, I came up on two ewes who’d both given birth to triplets in close proximity to one another. One lamb had been born dead, another had been abandoned. And the four healthy lambs were nursing off both ewes interchangeably. I decided to trust the ewes to sort out the healthy lambs on their own; I took the abandoned lamb home and put him next to the wood stove. About the time I was ready to go to bed, the lamb decided he wanted to live - and so I gave him a bottle every 3-4 hours during the night!


This morning, a Facebook friend from Lincoln responded to a post offering a bottle lamb, and off he went to his new home. I’m glad I saved his life, but I simply don’t have the bandwidth to raise bummers this year. Part of this is a reflection of working full time and ranching part time; part of it is that I’m all by myself this year for the first time in more than three decades.


But I’m finding a deeper meaning in my desire not to keep any bottle lambs this year. Today, just a year after Sami’s second brain surgery, and six months (tomorrow) after she passed away while I held her hand at home, I find that the weight of the decisions I had to make in the last twelve months is still heavy on my mind.


In some ways, I regret breeding my ewes to lamb this year. Lambing season usually brings me great joy, but this year’s lambing has been more difficult than I expected - not due to weather or dystocias or other problems with the sheep, but because I miss getting to talk to Sami. I miss having someone with whom I can troubleshoot problems, someone with whom to share the daily ups and downs. I miss watching Sami care for lambs in the living room.

 


Monday, January 22, 2024

52 Weeks

A year ago today, Sami and I left Las Cruces a few minutes before 7 a.m., headed for Reserve, New Mexico (for a lunch meeting) and ultimately for Flagstaff, Arizona (our halfway point on our drive home from visiting Lara). The desert sunrise was notable; I still have a photo on my phone, taken from Lara’s front steps. Sami slept off and on as we made our way through Silver City and along the Gila River, which she often did during long trips. While we ate lunch, snow started falling, making the drive into Arizona slippery. Driving a road I’d never driven before, through the snow, required all of my concentration; I finally relaxed a bit when conditions improved north of Alpine, Arizona.


As I relaxed, I began to notice that Sami was having difficulty finishing sentences. She’d start to say something and then trail off before she could finish her thought. As the afternoon wore on, I grew frustrated with her - she seemed so distracted. When we arrived in Flagstaff after dark, we checked into our hotel and walked next door to grab dinner. I asked her what was going on - what was wrong. “Nothing,” she insisted, “I’m just tired.”


We pulled out of Flagstaff early the next morning. Interstate 40 was icy, so I drove first. We switched seats in Kingman, and Sami drove us into California. The weather cleared, but the wind was blowing - we joked that the wind was pushing the truck around, making it hard for Sami to stay in her lane. Somewhere between Needles and Barstow, I got behind the wheel again, taking us through Bakersfield. By the time Sami started driving again near Tulare, it was late afternoon. She was still having trouble finishing a thought, and trouble staying in her lane of traffic on Highway 99. We called Emma in Idaho, putting her on speaker phone - Sami didn’t say much.


We reached Merced and a confusing stretch of roadwork after dark. Sami exited the freeway and asked me to drive. We had trouble figuring out how to get back on the freeway; Sami was confused by what Google Maps was telling us to do. I, of course, grew frustrated again.


Sometime after 8 p.m., we pulled into our driveway. Since we’d been gone more than a week, the house was cold. Sami said she’d unload the truck if I’d work on getting a fire going in the wood stove and feed the animals. She stopped unpacking about halfway through, telling me she was tired. I grumbled my way through unloading the rest of the truck. We went to bed.


The next day (Wednesday), I went back to work. Sami stayed home to put things away and return phone calls. She still had difficulty finding words (a condition we would soon learn was called aphasia). On Thursday morning, we both arose around 5 a.m. Sami said she felt nauseous. I left to move sheep. When I returned home around 8:30, Sami was sitting in front of the wood stove. She said, “I just passed out. I thought I was going to be sick, so I went into the bathroom. I came to on the floor. I don’t know what happened.”


I insisted that she try calling her doctor. When she couldn’t get through, we decided to go to the emergency room. After running a series of tests, the doctor thought she had some type of aortic aneurysm, and since she’d fainted, the doctor suspended her driver’s license.


That evening, Sami had a fair board meeting she didn’t want to miss. I took her to her meeting, picking her up when it was over. We talked about the meeting, and Sami noted that she’d had difficulty writing (she was right-handed). We both thought that was odd.


Friday morning, I had to leave for work early. By this time, all of us were very worried. Lara and I talked while I was driving to work, and we made Sami agree that we would check in on her every half hour or so while I was gone. When I got home that afternoon, we finally heard from Sami’s doctor, who found the neurological symptoms (aphasia and writing difficulties) concerning. She told us to go back to the ER, and she called ahead to talk to the doctor. As we walked from the parking lot, I remarked that Sami seemed to be dragging her right foot. Later that night, the doctor told us a CT scan had revealed a mass on Sami’s left frontal lobe. He had referred her to a larger hospital for an MRI as soon as possible. By 10:30 the next morning, Sami was being prepped for what was to be the first of two brain surgeries. Just 202 days after we started home from New Mexico, Sami passed away from glioblastoma.


Even a year later, this six day stretch of time seems so clear - and so surreal. When we got into the truck on that January morning, I was excited to see new country, and nervous about the snow in the forecast. When we arrived in Flagstaff, I was relieved to be off the icy roads and annoyed with Sami for being so distracted. Annoyance gave way to anxiety and uncertainty, as we began to realize that something was seriously wrong. And then my memory grows a bit fuzzier; the two weeks between her first surgery and her second are far less clear, as is the rest of 2023.


Sami recovered from her first craniotomy and returned home. Lara and Emma returned to their homes, too. And then Sami felt worse - just 16 days after her first surgery, she was back in the hospital. And just 18 days later, she underwent a second craniotomy. My next clear memories are of the second surgeon telling us she had glioblastoma, and of sitting next to her in the neuro ICU after she’d come out of surgery on February 15. She held my left hand all night, rubbing the knuckles raw with her thumb. We were both so scared.


Looking back at all of this a year later makes me think how naive I was. On that Monday morning, we both expected that life would simply go on as it had been going. We were in our mid fifties and (we thought) in decent health. Sami was training for a half marathon in March. I was looking forward to lambing season in mid February. We were both figuring we’d settle back into our work routines upon returning from a wonderful trip.


Today, 52 weeks later, I find myself searching for lessons. Cliches like, “take life a day at a time,” and “live every day like it’s your last,” resonate to some degree, but they fail to acknowledge the magnitude of what our family experienced. I also find myself thinking about how Sami experienced those weeks after we returned from our trip. As much as I try to put myself in her shoes, I know I’ll never truly understand what she was feeling. And I find myself wondering who and where I’ll be 52 weeks from today. I guess that might be one of the lessons of this past year - none of us really know. 




Friday, January 19, 2024

All In

I’ve always admired those people who go “all in” on something. Who train and work at a skill and become incredibly proficient. I’m not talking about athletes or professional musicians (although there are some among these folks who I admire) - I’m talking about buckaroos. Loggers. Cabinet makers. Sheepherders.

Becoming great at anything, I think, takes drive, dedication, and focus - and 10,000 hours of work, according to Malcom Gladwell! But becoming good at caring for livestock on rangeland, or falling trees safely and efficiently, or crafting useful and beautiful furniture, takes more than that, I believe. Going all in, in any of these occupations, requires a sense of place. A sense of the aesthetic. A sense of how others will use the end product of one’s work. And lots of sweat.


I have never been able to focus enough to go “all in” on one particular set of skills. In high school, my favorite classes were woodshop and drafting - even though I knew I wanted to go to college to study agricultural economics. My woodshop teacher even nominated me for a Bank of America award in applied arts - my presentation focused on the value of skills like woodworking and welding - “arts” that improve our everyday lives. I didn’t “win,” but I did get a small scholarship!


As I’ve grown older, I’ve tried to learn skills like falling trees, milling lumber, roping calves, shearing sheep, and farming vegetables. At some of these, I’ve been reasonably successful - I’m pretty good at lambing out ewes, for example. At some, I struggle - I’m not a great logger, nor am I a great roper. But I’ve enjoyed the learning process. I’ve enjoyed trying to understand the combination of intellectual knowledge and physical skill. I’ve enjoyed embracing my own curiosity and fallibility.


I’ve also enjoyed learning a bit more about what it takes to become proficient at the skills in which I’ve only dabbled. I’ve come to understand that some things can only be learned by doing - falling a tree in the right direction and in a way that preserves the log requires lots of mistakes. Roping a calf safely and gently requires lots of misses, and probably a few wrecks. From experience, I know that lambing out a bunch of ewes will inevitably come with a whole bunch of problems!


Ultimately, I suppose I’ve tried to be a jack of all trades - and I’ve ended up being a master of none. But my attempts to understand the work involved in housing, clothing, and feeding all of us have given me a greater appreciation for the skills involved. Maybe that’s where I’ve gone “all in.”