Time Plays Tricks

Thirty eight years ago tomorrow, I helped Sami celebrate her 21st birthday. We’d met in September 1988 just before the fall quarter of our third year at UC Davis - we were both part of the livestock judging team (Sami was on the 1988 team; I would be on the 1989 team). We spent the week before classes started looking at livestock. And I spent the next several months trying to convince Sami to go on a date with me. Fortunately, she was horse-crazy, and I had a horse that I was boarding in Davis - even so, she didn’t agree to an actual date until Halloween. On her birthday, as I recall, we went to several bars in Davis. The next morning, I took her to a western wear store in Sacramento and bought her some obnoxiously bright (but very much in-style) pink Wranglers. And she experienced her first hangover.

This morning, I heard a song titled “Seneca Creek” by Charles Wesley Godwin. The characters in the song are married in 1949. Several verses later, Godwin sings about a flood in 1985. I did the math - 1949 to 1985 seemed like a long time, but the dates are just 36 years apart. And I realized that Sami and I were together for 35 years. Paradoxically, 35 years sounds like a long time, and it was not nearly long enough.

Sami would not have been happy about turning 59 years old. I’ve always enjoyed having birthdays, but Sami often seemed like she would have preferred to hold back the one-way flow of years. Tomorrow, I’ll “celebrate” the fourth birthday since her passing. This morning, I awoke sad and exhausted - and missing Sami. There will always be days when Sami’s loss seems particularly fresh in my mind, and tomorrow will be one of them.

I’m sure that part of my exhaustion stems from anxiety - anxiety that first appeared with Sami’s first trip to the emergency room in January 2023. Anxiety that has continued as my sister and I moved into the role of caregiver for our parents. And anxiety related to my own health and well-being. Several weeks ago, I had to take myself to the emergency room (I’m fine!) - a reminder that I’m alone. A reminder that I’ve had to learn to be more self-sufficient than I’ve ever been.

But much of my exhaustion is grief-related. Even though we had 35 years together, I still feel like time was stolen from us. I don’t subscribe to the notion that we move through grief in stages, but I do sometimes feel anger that we didn’t get to experience things like college graduation and the marriage of our oldest daughter together. I don’t know who I’m mad “at” - the universe, maybe? But I’m angry nonetheless. I suppose that losing a partner always feels this way, no matter how much time we get.

Finally, I’m in the midst of summarizing my research and extension work as part of what UC Cooperative Extension calls the merit and promotion process. In essence, I am looking back at the last two years and trying to describe the impact I’ve had in my community and in my institution. This is the second 2-year review I’ve done since Sami died - and next year will mark my 10th anniversary as a livestock and natural resources advisor. This time around, I’m struggling with the feeling that this process seems very self-promotional, and that my colleagues who appear more comfortable with self-promotion receive greater recognition of their work. I am so fortunate to have a job that allowed me to care for Sami; during this review process I feel like that 7 months cost me professionally. I would not have done any of it differently, but there are times when I wrestle with my selfish need for appreciation. I suspect my tendency towards overcommitment is rooted in this sense of trying to make up for the time I lost.

No wonder I’ve been tired all day….

Transhumant Scientist

Transhumance [trans-hyoo-muhns] - noun: the seasonal migration of livestock, and the people who tend them, between lowlands and adjacent mountains. (from dictionary.com)

Mostly, I love my day job. As a livestock and natural resources advisor with the University of California Cooperative Extension, I get to work with ranchers and rangeland managers here in the Central Sierra Nevada region to find answers to our collective questions around rangeland livestock production and natural resources. Sure, there are days that I have to spend in the office, feeding the bureaucracy that is part of any large institution. But mostly I get to work on things that the folks I serve are curious about - in large part, the same things I'm curious about! Questions like, "How does grazing or browsing affect fire behavior?" "Can we use virtual fence to target specific landscape or vegetation management goals?" "Do livestock guardian dogs push predators to neighboring properties, or do they simply disrupt their predatory behaviors?"

Many of the ranchers I work with on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada still practice some form of transhumance. They, along with their livestock, spend the late fall, winter, and spring months in the foothills or the Central Valley. They spend their summers, largely, in the high country - mostly on Forest Service grazing permits. This cycle of seasonal migration has existed long before the Forest Service was created in the early 1900s.

This year, my research activities followed this transhumant pattern. During the winter and spring, much of my focus was on grazing in the foothills. I measured total forage production across all four counties I serve. I experimented with virtual fencing systems on sheep, goats, and livestock guardian dogs. I helped design a new project to measure the nutritional value of our annual rangelands.

But as spring turned to summer, I got to spend more time in the mountains! Lucky me! I measured biomass and shrub moisture at UC's Blodgett Experimental Forest in the mountains above Georgetown, both before sheep and goats arrived and after they left. I collected data on grazing use in mountain meadows and upland range at 8500' above sea level south of Sonora Pass. I learned how to measure meadow biodiversity in the Lakes Basin country of the Tahoe National Forest. And I worked with several producers who summer in the high country to test virtual fence technology on livestock guardian dogs and cattle.

The side benefit was that I got to be in the mountains! At least every two weeks - sometimes more frequently. I often got to take my dogs with me - and we frequently camped out. I dialed in my camping gear - by the end of the summer, I could have my tent set up and dinner ready to eat in 30 minutes! I finally wore out the soles on a pair of Whites boots.

By mid-October, when I wrapped up my summer field season, I was ready to be home for awhile. Transhumant science - at least for me - took quite a bit of driving. After my last day in the mountains, I emptied my field vest (I'm kinda old school - my field vest is an ancient Filson canvas vest) and threw it in the wash, and shipped my Whites to Spokane for new soles. I'm enjoying the prospect of sleeping in my own bed for the next six months or so (rather than on the ground).

But tonight, as I write this in front of my woodstove, I realize that part of the attraction of transhumance, at least for me, was the rhythm. The cycle of changing seasons. The cycle of changing work. This year, I got to see spring come to the foothills - and then to the mountains. Similarly, I got to see the aspens turn golden in the High Sierra, and now I'm seeing the black oaks turn yellow here in the foothills.

Transhumance is an ancient system that allowed herders and ranchers to follow the green forage - upslope in the late spring, downslope in the fall. This year, we are celebrating the International Year of Pastoralists - the people in all cultures who tend livestock on rangelands. Who have followed the green for generations - for millennia, in some parts of the world. In a very small way, I got to experience a bit of this lifeway this summer. And hopefully for the remaining summers in my career!  

Dreams and Red Tail Hawks

I want to start with a warning - this essay may be a little bit "out there" for some. But as is the case with most of my blog posts in the last three-plus years, I find that writing these thoughts down - and sharing them with those of you who take the time to read them - helps me understand what I'm going through!

I'm not sure how long this lasted, but there was a period after Sami died where I couldn't remember the sound of her voice. Or the sound of her laughter. I wondered at the time if those recollections would ever return (they have, thankfully); it was terribly unsettling to think I wouldn't be able to remember how she sounded, or even what she looked like before the brain tumor and chemo/radiation therapy took their toll.

Looking back, this period corresponded with Sami's disappearance from my dreams. I suppose I was probably in shock - I know that I was numb at the conclusion of her brief illness and passing. When she eventually did return to my dreams, those initial dreams were disconcerting, both in their content and in waking up to realize I'd dreamed about someone who was no longer present in my physical world.

More recently, I seem to have "normal" dreams about Sami and our life together. She appears in scenes that are familiar to me. I can hear her talking, mostly about things we always talked about. In my dreams, I'm transported back to the home in Auburn where we spent most of our lives together. But several weeks ago, I had perhaps the strangest - and most comforting - dream since she passed away in 2023.

The setting is unclear to me now, but I think I dreamed we were still in our home in Auburn. And while it seemed to be after she'd died, she was back - which we both found comforting. I do recall realizing - and saying to her - that I knew the glioblastoma would kill her eventually (again?), but I was so happy she'd returned. And I said, "Now we can talk about what you hope for for me after you die." And then I woke up.

But waking up wasn't bad - I awoke with the feeling that Sami was okay with where my life (and our daughters' lives) have gone since she left us. Previous dreams have left me with odd premonitions (like the dream I had before I was in a car wreck in 2024, for example). This dream left me with a profound sense of calm.

Another interesting (at least to me) part of my journey through grief has been the recurring importance of red tail hawks. In talking with others about - and reading about - grief, there does seem to be a connection between the natural world and the loss of our loved ones. I listened to an audio book about grief by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn last year where he talked about the conservation of energy and the manifestation of our human forms. Sami's energy is still in the world that I walk in - it has simply taken a different form. Her energy is in my memory of our lives together; it's also in the way that I do daily tasks - ways of being and doing that I learned from her. Her energy, for me, is also in the red tail hawks that live in my foothill environment.

On that day after Sami died, when I first saw a hawk and began to associate it with Sami's presence, I suppose I've become more open to noticing things that happened regardless of my awareness. I've written about dreaming that I saw a red tail hawk perched on the gate post of the property I ended up buying in Mountain Ranch. Twice now, during virtual sessions with therapists when we were discussing a particularly difficult emotional challenge, I've seen a red tail hawk drop out of the sky onto the ground on the hillside above my house. And several weeks ago, when I had successfully harvested a deer and was sad about not sharing the experience with Sami, I saw a red tail hawk catch a rodent and perch in a tree at the top of my property to consume its meal.

Logically, I understand that these are just hawks being hawks - I'm creating meaning for these occurrences that has little to do with the natural world. But perhaps grief opens a window into the nature of energy and meaning and relationship that can't be opened otherwise. And perhaps this window transcends the observed world and the dream world. I don't know. I do know that my recent dream about Sami - and my recent observation of the hawks in my environment - have brought me some degree of comfort.

The End of His Shift

Bodie at lambing time.

I have had the good fortune of the years of owning some exceptional livestock guardian dogs. Buck and Reno stand out in my memory. Buck was a re-homed Pyrenees cross (which was remarkable in itself - re-homed dogs do not work out, in many cases). Reno was Anatolian mix I started as a puppy. Elko and Dillon were also solid dogs, as was Boise (once we found the right job for him - he needed bigger country and ended up going to a ranch in Rio Vista). But Bodie was one of the very best. And I had to put him down this morning.

Bodie was an Anatolian x Maremma I purchased from Crystal Emsoff near Vinton, California, in the spring of 2016. Emma and I drove up in my little Chevy commuter car to pick him up - he rode home in a dog crate in the back seat next to Emma. She was especially happy when he barfed!

As I recall, Bodie went through the normal growing pains of most LGDs. At some point, he wanted to play with the ewes we were bonding him with - so he had to hang out with the rams for a month or so. By the time he was a teenage dog (at around 9 months), however, he was trustworthy enough to go back with a group of older ewes on one of our leased pastures. The following spring, during lambing, I videotaped Reno chasing him away from the first lambing ewe he'd encountered (Reno knew there'd be tasty afterbirth once the ewe delivered her lambs). Bodie was a dependable lambing dog for the rest of his life.

By the time he was 3, he was one of our most solid dogs. In the spring of 2019, I watched him "train" our newest dog, Elko, to stay away from lambing ewes using the same technique Reno had used with him (and in anticipation of a snack). I also began to realize that whenever Bodie thought the sheep needed to move to fresh forage, he'd wait for me at the junction of two electro-net fences - he knew that's where I'd open the fence to move the flock. Interestingly, this only happened when Bodie thought the feed was too short - something must have changed in the behavior of the sheep. On the rare occasions when we had sheep in hard-wire fences, Bodie would always find the coyote holes. Rather than run off, he'd either find me or lay by the dog food tote so that I'd know I needed to fix the fence.

This photo of Bodie was on the cover of Sheep Industry News in 2019!

Bodie took our move to Mountain Ranch in stride, although I think he was a little bored with so few animals to protect. Last winter, when snow knocked the fence down, I found Bodie and the ewes bedded down under a cedar tree across the road at a neighbor's property. He was probably the best bonded LGD I've ever raised.

Bodie lived his entire life outdoors. I don't know that he'd ever been to a veterinarian - Sami provided all of his care while she was alive. He rarely road in the truck - he much preferred riding in the trailer with the livestock. While he'd been slowing down significantly over the last several weeks, but this morning, when he couldn't stand or even lift his head, I realized I would have to put him down.

Bodie was one of four remaining animals who knew Sami - now it's just Mae (my old border collie) and the mules. That realization in itself made me sad. But I was also sad knowing that Sami would have been able to perform the euthanasia. Over the course of my ranching career, I've had to put animals down (which is always hard), but never a dog (which I found to be much more difficult emotionally). Sami always cried when she had to put down one of our dogs. I cried this morning - both at losing Bodie and at the accumulation of loss I've experienced in the last four years.

Losing a pet - any pet - is difficult. But Bodie was not a pet. He was a working livestock guardian dog who preferred the company of sheep and goats to that of humans. LGDs need to be attentive to their surroundings, trustworthy around livestock and people, and submissive to livestock. Bodie was all of these, but with humans, he was mostly aloof. I hope the new pup I reserved yesterday will eventually fill his shoes. But this afternoon, I'm missing ol' Bodie.

Bodie's replacement. He
has big shoes to fill. 

Who Do I Share These Things With Now?

I know I’ve written this before in this space, but I didn’t grow up hunting. My Dad taught me to fish, which I still love to do, but we were not a hunting family. Sometime in my 40s, I decided to take a hunter safety class, purchase a rifle, and learn to hunt. In my middle age, I decided that I wanted to fully participate in the process of putting meat on our table. And since that time, at least as far as I can remember, I’ve successfully harvested nine black tail bucks (six here in the foothills/Sierra; three on the North Coast). Yesterday evening, I filled my deer tag for the third time since Sami died.

I have enjoyed learning to hunt deer. For me, learning to hunt is similar to learning to work a herding dog - both are skills I’ll never be done learning. Learning to safely operate a deadly weapon is just part of the process - I love learning to understand the behaviors of deer, of knowing what kind of habitat they are likely to occupy, of watching their behaviors change as rutting season approaches. And I also love learning how to process the meat that I harvest, and how to cook venison.

Sami grew up in Burbank - in a family that neither hunted nor fished. But on one of our first road trips together (to Oregon and Washington, to visit veterinary schools), we fished on our way back over Sonora Pass. The limit for trout at that time was 10, as I recall - Sami caught eight, and I (barely) beat her with nine.

That trip was the apex of Sami’s fishing career, but she loved that I taught our daughters to fish (and later to hunt). She liked when I brought home - and cooked - dinner, too. And while she never hunted with me, she grew to love venison as much as I did (except for organ meats - as a veterinarian who understood the function of organs like liver, she wasn’t a big fan).

For me, part of the satisfaction that came with hunting was that of being a provider. Of filling our freezer with meat as winter approached. Of being able to grab a package of venison stew meat or backstrap steaks and cook a meal for our family (and later, as the girls went on to college and careers, for the two of us).

Since Sami died, though, a successful hunt has been more complicated for me. I’ve realized that part of what I enjoy about hunting is being able to share the experience - and the production - of bringing home a buck.

Last evening, I harvested a buck here at my new place. I’d watched the deer all year and had some sense of their patterns. When I walked off my hill with the dogs in the early evening, a buck I’d seen several times before deer season began popped up, looked at us, and bounded off. But I’d begun to realize that once I got to a place where I could settle in and watch, he might come back. He did. And I made a pretty decent shot. I got done dressing and skinning him a little after 9 pm.

After cleaning up and having dinner, though, I found that I couldn’t go to sleep, despite my exhaustion. At first, I thought it was adrenaline - and that certainly may have contributed to my insomnia. But I also realized this morning that I was missing Sami. Intensely. And so I decided to stay home for the day. I haven’t done much all day (besides taking the buck to a friend’s walk-in cooler and going grocery shopping). I found that I needed a day to simply be with myself and with my loneliness.

Getting a deer has always brought me a sense of relief, that now that I’ve provided meat for the year, I can get on with other fall activities (like firewood, or winterizing my garden). I feel that sense today, but I also feel sad that there’s no one in this house with whom to share my success. This afternoon, I feel particularly alone.

Hello Sadness, My Old Friend.... Or the Difference Between Sadness and Despair

Sadness - grief - I've come to realize, is a normal emotion. Despair, at least as I understand it, is sadness without hope of happiness. And at least recently, I'm beginning to understand - even embrace - my periodic sadness. Perhaps because I've also experienced happiness in the three-plus years since Sami died.

These last 10 days have been draining emotionally. Last weekend, we had a living estate sale for my parents. My Mom is in a skilled nursing facility with advanced dementia; my Dad is still living at the home I grew up in but increasingly needs help navigating day-to-day life. My niece and her family are going to buy the house; we're working on downsizing with my Dad. Last weekend, we had a sale at their barn.

My relationship with possessions has changed since Sami's passing and my own move. There were a handful of furniture pieces, kitchen items, and artwork that my folks had that I wanted to keep, but I have neither the room - or the desire - to keep very many of their possessions. I also found myself thinking about what my daughters would want to keep (versus what they'd have to sell when I pass). Nevertheless, I found it difficult emotionally to see the material evidence of my childhood - and my parents' lives - go to other homes. Last Sunday evening, I was entirely drained.

The work week was exhausting - lots of driving, lots of being "on" (difficult for someone who rides the fence between extrovert and introvert). Yesterday, after doing laundry and going for a walk with my dogs, I met my sister and brother-in-law in town to purchase appliances for my Dad's new place. After, I went to the feedstore and the hardware store. I trimmed some of the trees that had caused the California FAIR Plan to threaten to increase my fire insurance premium. I canned some peppers. I went grocery shopping. I did more laundry. In other words, I was (mostly) a functioning adult.

This morning, I slept in - nearly till 6:30! I lazed around - made a big breakfast, did the dishes, did more laundry. I canned more peppers. Took a nap. I felt entirely unmotivated. And sad....

Because for some reason this morning, I had flashbacks to the last road trip Sami and I took in January 2023. I remembered the owl I saw on the day we left for New Mexico - and so I also remembered Sami's aphasia on the trip home. I remembered the anxiety and fear we experienced from February 2023 through her passing in August of that year. I did not feel like doing much today.

But after my nap, I felt more motivated. I did some woodworking, and I serviced my sawmill. And I listened to the last San Francisco Giants broadcast of the year.

I have always loved baseball, but the Giants have been truly awful this year. Today was the end of the season, at least for the teams that didn't make the playoffs. And today was the last time that Giants broadcaster (and former pitcher) Mike Krukow would be a regular. The Giants lost to the Dodgers (as expected); the postgame ceremony with Krukow was amazing. And while listening, I found myself thinking about loss. About the ending of things. About sadness.

I should note - one of the gifts that Sami gave me while she was sick was asking to go to a Giants game in May 2023. We were going to be in San Francisco to meet with her UCSF care team to discuss enrolling in a clinical trial - the Giants were in town, so we went to the game the night before the appointment. Sami wasn't a huge baseball fan, so I realize now that going to the game was her gift to me.

Krukow's broadcast partner for so many years, Duane Kuiper, paraphrased North Carolina State basketball coach, Jim Valvano, who said that every day, you should laugh, you should think, and you should cry (either from happiness or from grief).

As ballplayers I remember from my younger days (notably Bob Brenly and Will Clark) recounted their days as Mike Krukow's teammate, I laughed. As Kuiper, and then Krukow, talked about friendship, I thought. And as Krukow's family, at the end of the on-field ceremony, led the crowd who'd remained at Oracle Park in singing "The Parting Glass," I broke down and cried.

But I also realized that I'm growing more comfortable in my sadness. I realized that I did experience despair during the spring and summer of 2023 - when the seriousness of Sami's illness became clear. When I understood the weight of hoping that Sami wouldn't suffer - and that we wouldn't suffer in caring for her. But today - 37-plus months after I lost my wife of 33 years, I also realize that sadness is an emotion that I will continue to experience. That sadness is, in effect, the result of having been intensely happy. Sadness, I guess, is my friend.

Arbitrary, Unaccountable,… and Maybe Actually Evil?!

During the late winter or early spring of 2023, while we were absorbing the reality of Sami’s brain cancer diagnosis, we received notification that our homeowner’s insurance had been cancelled because our property was on a map that indicated we were in a zone of high wildfire probability. Never mind that our property was surrounded by lawn, irrigated pasture, and grazed annual rangeland. Never mind that there were no shrubs or ladder fuels on our property or on our neighbors’. We were on a map. And so our only option was the California “FAIR” Plan (the quote marks are ironic, in case you didn’t get the joke!). And we got to pay roughly three times our old premium just for fire insurance.

When I sold our place in Auburn and bought my current home in Mountain Ranch (in Calaveras County, within the burn scar of the 2015 Butte Fire), I knew I’d be stuck with FAIR Plan insurance, but I wasn’t ready for the initial quote. My new house, which survived the Butte Fire, was bigger than I needed, but I loved the land around it. I didn’t love the quote - my agent informed me that I’d need to cough up more than $8,000 per year to insure my home against fire - and that I’d need a separate liability policy for other potential hazards. Since I was fortunate enough to be paying cash, I was able to negotiate a lower rate (basically by saying if the house burned, I’d rebuild a much smaller dwelling). Even so, my annual premium - just for fire insurance - was nearly $4,000. I have since learned that some of my new neighbors were able to retain their private insurance. Regardless, I can’t even get a quote from a private insurer.

This year, the premium rose to over $4,000. My insurance agent (who is sympathetic), helped me verify the things I’d done to keep my home fire resistant. My “Zone 0” (within 5 feet of my home) is free of flammable material. I’ve pruned up trees and cut weeds within Zone 1 (5-30 feet). And beyond 30 feet (Zone 2), I’ve grazed my property with sheep, goats, and mules to a level that is scientifically proven to slow - or even stop - fire. But much like the phone company in the old Lily Tomlin skit on Saturday Night Live, FAIR Plan said, “We don’t care. We don’t have to.” I was granted a small discount, but my premium was still over $4,000.

After I’d renewed my policy, I received a notice from my agent (and from the FAIR Plan) that my premium would increase by 29% because of the fires in the Los Angeles area in 2025. I can do basic math (usually) - my annual premium would be more than $5,000. That evening, I contacted my California Assembly representative, David Tangipa, and my California State Senator, Marie Alvarado-Gill, about the issue. It’s been more than two months (in an election year), and I’ve yet to hear from either of them.

Tonight, I received three separate notices from the FAIR Plan. I think these are about a tree next to my garage. I think (maybe?) that my premium will increase by more than $700 due to this tree. Or that maybe they won’t cover my detached garage. But typically of every communication I’ve received from the FAIR Plan in the last 3 years, I’m not entirely sure. The FAIR Plan belongs in the Hall of Fame of Government Opaqueness.

When Sami was sick and we were struggling to get our insurance company to respond to our request for alternative treatment, I found that tagging Anthem Blue Cross in my social media posts got the company’s attention. The FAIR Plan is a quasi-government entity (I think - even this isn’t clear!). I find that I don’t know how to publicly shame them! One of the letters I received today indicated that there is an appeals process - that I can send a letter to Victoria Roach, President of the California FAIR Plan. But I have no idea who Victoria is accountable to - she’s certainly not accountable to those of us who’ve paid into the FAIR Plan. Equally troubling, neither Mr. Tangipa nor Ms. Alvarado-Gill are apparently accountable to their constituents.

I get that the mega-fires we’ve experienced in California in the last decade-plus have stretched private insurance companies beyond the breaking point. I understand my responsibility as a rural landowner to keep my property safe - and to work with my neighbors to keep my community safe. But I also know that my elected representatives are charged with representing my interests. I’m terribly frustrated that nobody in our state government seems to have the willpower to take on this issue.

And so tonight, I’m once again tempted by my privilege in owning my home outright. Maybe I’ll simply put the $4,000-plus the FAIR Plan requires into my own bank account. 

And maybe, if the worst happens, I’ll buy a sheep camp trailer….