Going green

Can you hear it? Can you hear the grass growing? I went to downtown Santa Ynez to my office at the Journal and I could just begin to see a green haze form on the brown hills. By the time I returned down Highway 154 to my home later that afternoon, I could swear the grass had grown two inches. Wow! I could see from the road that the cows and calves were scattered all over the fields, chasing that little bit of green wherever they could reach it. We still feed them daily because we want the grass to get a head start on the animals, otherwise it won’t have a chance to grow to a normal height.

We also are spending a lot of time speculating what kind of rain we will get this winter and hope that Mother Nature will be kind and give us plentiful, gentle rains with warmish weather following to keep that grass growing. Whether she is or not, we will adapt our management to whatever happens, good or bad. In the meantime, as I write this we are looking forward to making up the rainfall deficit we have been experiencing with the predicted four days of precipitation that will have fallen by the time you read this.

 

Ranch happenings

January is a busy month for us, aside from watching the skies anxiously for rain and wishing that grass to grow long enough to wave in the afternoon breezes of spring. All of our calves have been born and are quickly growing with the richness of their mother’s milk and small bites of hay or grass. The bulls, having been turned out on Nov. 15, now have mostly been bred again for calving next year.

Toward the middle of the month, we will have our annual branding event, at which friends and neighbors from other ranches gather to help us brand, vaccinate against deadly diseases, and castrate the bull calves to prevent injury to them as they grow older. This is a very old tradition that we have carried on for many generations. Aside from the efforts we make to keep our animals healthy, we also are following laws to identify our animals by branding them with a state registered mark, in this case the –V– brand we have had since the 1920s.

I know there are people who think that the branding, vaccination and castration procedures are cruel and unnecessary, but consider these facts:

Branding is required by law in this state and is useful for identifying the owner of an animal should it get out on the highway or escape the confines of a particular field. One cannot summon a cow or bull by saying “Here, Bossy,” because they do not answer to a call like a dog or a horse, and in some of the more rugged fields one may not be able to get very close to the animal, so it helps to have a large mark one can see from a distance. Also, in these kinds of fields, ear tags very often get snagged on bushes and disappear, leaving the animal unidentified. So, too, ID tags inserted under the skin require a scanner to read them which, in turn, requires electricity out in the fields, many of which have no electrical sources.

 

Vaccinations are given annually to make sure that diseases, many of which are painful and fatal to the animal contracting them, do not take hold in a herd where it will quickly spread. Some of these diseases can impact humans, and it is thanks to careful handling by ranch personnel that this is not a problem here. For each drug administered there are very strict regulations how, where and when it is used. Some are subcutaneous, some are intra-muscular and some are intra-nasal. All of those people working at a branding are informed about which shot goes where and how to apply it, and most of them have considerable experience already. This is for the safety of the animal and of the person giving the drug.

 

 There are also what are known as “withdrawal rates,” of which most non-ranchers are not aware. The term refers to the length of time that must pass between when the drug is given and when the animal may go to slaughter. Each drug has a specific withdrawal rate that must be adhered to strictly to keep any residue from getting into the food supply. These rates have all been determined by the Food and Drug Administration as part of its certification process.

As to the castration process, there is some pain involved, although most ranchers have only the most skilled people performing this small surgery with a quick, sharp cut and immediate application of a topical antiseptic. This process is necessary to prevent injury when the young animal grows up and starts feeling the effects of hormones that can make them overly aggressive toward one another. Of course, if one is raising male calves for the purpose of raising breeding bulls, castration is not part of the program, but this is not the purpose for which we are raising calves.

 

Altogether, branding time on a ranch is a joyous time because it is a time to see the results of the whole of last year’s work. It is a time to gather with your friends and neighbors, enjoy roping, showing off your new horse and your skills and then, when the calves are all together with their moms and it is quiet again, to sit together, talk about the calf crop and other brandings of this year, and eat a great meal together.

 

New foals

January also is the beginning of the foaling year for horses, as the American Quarter Horse Association marks Jan. 1 as the birthday for all registered AQHA horses. This is why quarter horse owners try to have their mares foal as soon after Jan. 1 as possible, so the foal is truly as close to proper development as it can be. A horse born in October will physically be only three months old on Jan. 1, and will be at a huge disadvantage should it be destined to be a show horse in events requiring a particular age such as Futurities for only three-year-olds. I don’t know how other horse breeds treat this topic; I can only write on what I know.

Our first foal is due Jan. 16, and it is anybody’s guess when he or she will appear, but it is a highly anticipated event. Aside from the wonderment of nature, the extremely well-known sire of this foal just died last year, so we are hoping he or she is as wonderful as its yearling sister.  We generally have eight or nine foals a year, and we look forward to each birth with trepidation that all goes well for both mare and foal. So far we’ve been pretty lucky, having lost only a couple.

 

Another excitement for us at this time of year is that at the branding we invite the trainers who take our two-year-olds home to train and, hopefully, turn into competitive horses, to come and pick the horses they would like to have shipped to them. For the first time, we have horses with reined cow horse, reining and cutting bloodlines in their genes. Up until now, we have only had reined cow horse and reining lines available.

It will be very exciting to have Jake Telford from Idaho, who was just named number one in reined cow horse earnings, Craig Schmersal, one of the very top reining trainers in the world, and two new local cutting trainers, Morgan Cromer and Kate Neubert, who are making names for themselves as well, come to look at what we have to offer them for training.

We have just completed our first year of having ranch bred and raised foals going to the three-year-old futurities, and two of them made the finals in their respective disciplines. This coming year we have foals of other mares hopefully going to the shows.

 

Election topics

I was sort-of amused the other day to receive a letter purporting to represent various segments of the community, including agriculture, which clearly does not have the Santa Ynez Valley interests at heart because this group spoke not one word for agriculture in the community planning process, even though they were asked to do so because of their affiliation with one segment here. It is unfortunate that so many do not understand that we stand or fall together. They must quit trying to push separatist agendas that only benefit one group or another.

The so-called environmental groups want to dictate all land-use policy, even though we already know the destructive nature of their ideas to the land they want to “save.” Put that together with the vast ignorance in that group of how land “works,” and an equally unfortunate disdain for our Constitution, including property rights, and we have a dangerous combination. As for those who support discriminatory policies, they also operate outside the Constitution, in fact, which I believe is their aim — to change us to accept all of their secular values.

So when it comes time to choose a 3rd District supervisor, or any other official for that matter, it pays to look at who their supporters are.

 

The year 2008 promises to be one of many new issues that will need to be ironed out, and, hopefully, some amicable resolution can be found. Polarization has become the norm, and that has resulted in people feeling isolated in their own communities when other people insist on their way being the only way. What has happened to sitting down and working out some compromises? Why has it become a right/wrong situation?

Why is it that people who have maintained parts of this valley for generations are hated, envied or made responsible for ills that happened generations ago? Oscar Wilde once said, “There is no sin except stupidity.” Is it still possible for our community to refrain from being completely stupid, focus on those things we agree on, which I believe are more numerous than those we don’t agree on, and work together for all of our sakes?

Think about it.