Too Soon to Say the "D" Word?

This fall, increasingly, is giving me a sense of déjà vu. We had a wonderful germinating rain during the third week of September, followed by another nice storm at the end of the month. And since September 30, we've had just 0.02 inches of rain - and multiple days of north wind. The grass that started growing with the September rains has shriveled. Looking at the forecast, there's been a 10 percent chance of rain 10 days out for the last 4 daily forecasts. This fall (and this forecast) reminds me of the autumn of 2013 - we had 1.75 inches of rain in September, but just 0.15 inches in October. I was helping lamb out a large group of ewes in Rio Vista that October-November - we fed our entire year's supply of alfalfa by Christmas. I'm not quite ready to say we're back in drought, but things are awfully dry - and more than a little bit scary.

We rely on rain-"irrigated" rangeland to feed our sheep from about November 15 through early April. Usually, we get enough rain in October (and still have enough warm days) to have plenty of grass by the time the days are short and cold enough to halt grass growth until late February or early March. We time our production calendar to minimize forage demand during the late fall and early winter - but we still need enough grass to feed our pregnant ewes. With the dry weather we've had this month - and especially with the low humidity and north wind - we'll now need another germinating rain. And we're quickly approaching the time of year when the days will be too short - and the air and soil too cold - to support grass growth.

We have saved some dry forage for the fall, but one of the reasons we have access to fall and winter grass on our winter rangeland is that we try to reduce fire danger with summer grazing on this same landscape. This year, we summer grazed about 50 acres. This is rangeland that we won't be able to graze again until the grass takes off. And we try to save about 80 acres for lambing - the ewes need almost twice as much grass per head per day during lambing as they do this time of year (in other words, our stocking rate doubles while our ewe inventory remains the same). All of this means that without rain in the near future, we'll run out of forage some time in January.

As a rancher, I try to be a realistic optimist. I try to hope for the best but plan for the worst. In the coming days, we'll get out on our winter range and estimate the amount of forage we have available. We'll examine our sheep inventory and determine whether we have any sheep we'd be willing to sell to reduce our forage demand. And we'll continue to pray for rain. Rangeland-based operations like ours are usually the first to feel the effects of drought; we'll hope this is just a short-term challenge rather than a years-long dry spell, like 2013-2015. We'll hope we're not back in a drought.

Less Technology; More Ranchers

I have a habit when I’m in a meeting during fire season. I periodically check several websites (notably YubaNet and CalFire) to make sure we’re safe at home. Today was no exception - and since the CalFire website wasn’t updating while I was attending a meeting in Davis, I kept checking the “Happening Now” page on YubaNet.

At 3:09 p.m., I received a call from my friend and fellow rancher, Joe Fischer. I texted him that I was in a meeting; he texted back that his wife had called and that there was a fire near the intersection of Bell Road and Joeger Road (about halfway between our home place and one of our leased ranches). He told me he could help if we needed to get livestock out of harm’s way.

About 5 minutes later, another rancher friend, Nathan Medlar, texted with the address of the fire. Nathan must have been monitoring the fire scanner - 15 minutes after his first text, he added,

“Per Air Attack,... moderate rate of spread, should have containment soon, can handle with aircraft on scene. Potential for 2 to 3 acres max.”

Sami reported that another friend, Eileen Sanchez, had heard the same report. And YubaNet confirmed it at around the same time.

All of this gets to the point I tried to make in yesterday’s blog post. Community is critically important in situations like this. Know who has livestock where - and knowing who to call - is more important (at least in my experience) than signing up for the county alert system (which, by the way, never activated in my case). The Rancher Grapevine, while informal and imperfect, often transmits news faster than the internet. And the folks who are part of the Rancher Grapevine know how to move livestock out of danger - definitely an added benefit. Both Joe and Nathan assured me that they could help Sami evacuate our home place, or our leased property, since I was an hour away. I can’t tell you what that did for my peace of mind!

Public Safety Power Shutoffs and the Limits of Technology

For the second time this month, PG&E shut off our electricity this weekend. Unlike the first "Public Safety Power Shutoff," this time, the predicted winds actually materialized. I awoke to howling winds and clanging wind chimes at 5 a.m. Sunday morning. As the day progressed and I watched reports of wildfires in the North Bay, Bay Area, and Southern California on my cell phone, I was increasingly thankful that our power had been shut off. But I also realized that our ever-increasing reliance on automated (and electric-powered) technology can put our safety at risk.

My go-to local source for fire and weather information is usually YubaNet.com. Publisher Susan Levitz and editor Pascale Fusshoeller do an amazing job of keeping up with local conditions - I don't think they ever sleep! If you don't have YubaNet in your bookmarks, here's the link: https://yubanet.com/. But there were times this weekend - even when my phone was charged - when AT&T's cellular network was down. I couldn't access YubaNet, or any other website, for that matter. AM radio - technology from well before my childhood, was the only source of information. And my only radio is in my truck!

On Saturday, I drove to Santa Rosa to give a talk on livestock guardian dogs at the Livestock Conservancy. On the way into town, I received several cell phone alerts (which are VERY loud and obnoxious) warning me that Sonoma County had issued an evacuation advisory because of the Kincade Fire. During the conference, the hotel shut down power briefly to transition to generator power - and I noticed that they placed battery-powered camping lanterns in the men's room (and, I assume, in the women's room). I started home from the conference at 5:45 p.m. - at around 6 p.m., Sonoma County made the evacuation advisory mandatory.

I'm not terribly familiar with the Santa Rosa area, so I was using Google Maps on my iPhone to navigate the best route back Auburn. Because of the evacuation (which had NOT come through on my phone), traffic was building - and the Google Maps algorithm couldn't keep up with the changing conditions. After it directed me to drive in a 5-mile circle, I gave up - and I followed the highway signs to Napa.

All of this suggests, to me at least, that there may be limitations to technology and automation. As a kid, I always looked up when I heard a fire plane overhead - and then scanned the horizon for smoke (a habit that I continue to this day). During bad storms or wildfires, we tuned into the local AM radio station (KVML in Sonora) for updates - I always hoped to hear that school was cancelled, which was announced on the radio (not on a robo-call). And I learned how to read a paper map.

To prove that I'm not entirely a curmudgeon, I will say that Twitter proved to be a fairly reliable source of on-the-ground information during this latest shut off. And Twitter was a way to converse with friends and colleagues about the conditions in their communities. At least while the cellular network was working.

Ultimately, though, situational awareness and a sense of community are probably our most important tools in situations like the one we've just experienced. Calling our neighbors, helping one another through difficult times, watching for smoke on the horizon, have always been important in rural communities. I fear for my urban and suburban neighbors, who perhaps didn't grow up with these necessities. Those of us who did need to share our knowledge.

Now I'm off to buy a battery-powered transistor radio....

From my Ranching in the Sierra Foothills Blog...

This week, we lost a ewe lamb to a coyote. The rancher part of me was pissed!

The extension agent part of me realized it was learning opportunity.

And so I blogged about it - on my other blog: https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=38628

Be aware - this blog includes video images of a dead lamb.

A Rough Week for Flying Mule Dogs

I'm usually not one to look forward to Fridays, but I will admit that I'm looking forward to this week being over. I'm sure our dogs are, too.

Late last week, we had to take Dillon, our 10-month-old LGD puppy, out of a group of sheep. We'd had him with our replacement ewe lambs (we have 3 groups of sheep at the moment - 2 breeding groups and a group of lambs). Dillon had started chasing and chewing on lambs; he actually chewed ears off of 4 lambs. We switched him with an older dog, thinking he'd not chase the mature ewes. We were wrong - last week he chased a ewe into the electric fence, where we found her dead the next morning. That day, we also discovered that 2 of the lambs he'd chewed on had developed flystrike. I sheared them and treated them for maggots - they seem to be on the mend. And Dillon is back at home with a dangle stick (a piece of PVC hanging from his collar) to discourage him from chasing the sheep.

This week, I was headed to Rio Vista with Sage, one of our Border Collie pups, when he decided to try to jump out of the truck (despite being tied in). Fortunately, I discovered it quickly, but not before he injured his back feet. He's currently on rehab in the house - and will be for some weeks. And I'll be investing in a truck box for the dogs. Our older dogs have never been a problem, but I won't take any chances.

For me, raising sheep (at least in part) is a welcome departure from the day-to-day stress of my "real" job. This week, however, the sheep business was my primary source of stress. I'm glad Friday has finally arrived.