Starting Over

I’m enough of a weather/nature nerd that I’ve kept a weather diary since 2001. The green hard-bound journal, with a page for each day of the year, sits on my nightstand, along with a min/max thermometer. Every evening, I jot down the high and low temperatures for the day, record any precipitation we received in the last 24 hours, and note sky conditions and any remarkable happenings in the natural world (when the first lilac blooms, for example, or when the tree frogs start to sing). I filled up my first journal in 2022, starting a new one three years ago. And on January 1 of each year, I flip all the way back to the front of the journal. I start over.

As I flipped back to the first page in my journal last week, I realized that the pages later in January would begin to document our family’s journey three years ago. In some ways, the anxiety we felt when Sami first experienced the symptoms of glioblastoma is still palpably with me. In other ways, I can’t believe how much has changed in my life since those days in early 2023.

While rangelands have been a common thread in my professional life, changing jobs has been the norm. I’ve worked on rangeland and livestock policy issues (with the California Cattlemen’s Association), rangeland conservation (starting the California Rangeland Trust and working with the Nevada County Land Trust), rangeland economics (as a coordinator for the High Sierra Resource Conservation and Development Council), and finally, rangeland science and management (in various positions with UC Cooperative Extension and UC Davis). I’ve even managed my own livestock on rangeland (first with a handful of cows, later with my own commercial sheep operation). Despite this continuous focus on rangelands, though, I seem to reinvent myself every 5-7 years.

My love of working outside and working with my hands has also evolved throughout my adult life. Last week, while the girls and I were going through boxes of things I’d moved from Auburn, I found the plaque I received in high school for a Bank of America award in applied arts. As I recall, my shop teachers nominated me for the award, which involved making a presentation about why applied arts (like woodworking or welding, for example) were every bit as much an artistic expression as fine arts. Early in our marriage, I was a woodworker, building furniture for our home and as gifts. Eventually, raising livestock (as a hobby at first, later as a business) became my opportunity to work with my hands and be outside. Now, operating my portable sawmill and building things from the lumber give me a chance to work outdoors and an outlet for my physical creativity.

Turning the pages of my weather diary back to January 1 last week made me realize that grieving the loss of a partner is, in a way, like starting over. Despite all of the new beginnings in my professional life, my personal life was marked by the 33 years I was married to Sami, and the 30 years we lived in Placer County. While I went from being the assistant vice president of the California Cattlemen’s Association to becoming the UC Cooperative Extension livestock and natural resources advisor for Placer, Nevada, Sutter, and Yuba Counties over the course of those 33 years, I was always Sami’s husband. I spent more than half of my life in that role. That one constant changed on August 13, 2023.

Since I became a widower nearly 30 months ago, lots of other things have changed in my life. I sold our home in Auburn and purchased another in the tiny Calaveras County town of Mountain Ranch. I transferred to a new job (I’m still a UCCE livestock and natural resources advisor, but I serve a different set of counties, including the one where I was raised). I’ve sold virtually all of my sheep. I’ve purchased a portable sawmill and learned to use it. I’ve tried to learn to live alone.

Over the last week, I’ve been reading The Place of Tides by shepherd/writer James Rebanks (a gift from my daughter, Lara). He says, “[I was] nearly fifty - when you wonder whether you have lived as well as you might, when you have to decide whether to stick or twist, carry on and accept your life, or strike out and make a change before it is too late.”

I realized this week that I’d begun thinking about the next phase even before Sami got sick. In early 2023, I’d agreed to buy out my sheep partner, who was moving to Texas. But with the realization that neither of our daughters were likely to move back to California, I’d also started considering a different side gig (something other than sheep) that would allow us to travel to see the girls more frequently. Sami and I had talked about using the proceeds from selling most of the sheep to buy a sawmill. But we hadn’t come to a decision.

All of which brings me back to this day three years ago. Had you told me on January 7, 2023, that three years later I’d be living in a different house, by myself, doing a new job, I’d have said you were crazy. One of the hardest lessons in Sami’s illness and passing has been the realization that I didn’t know what lay ahead of us on that January day three years ago - and that there’s no way for me to know what lies ahead of me tomorrow. But maybe I’m learning that I have a chance to start over every day.