All her life, Joann Stewart, 76, had been vaccinating
her heifers the same way — 50-shot German syringe in the butt,
one after the next. So when her daughter, Amanda Wisby, came back from
a University of California extension course in 1998 wanting to vaccinate
via neck with disposable, plastic syringes, Stewart quietly disapproved.
"But I kept my mouth shut and I let her do it,"
she explained from the "matriarchal seat" at the kitchen table
Tuesday afternoon as a firelight reflected off blue-lined delft plates,
gifted through three Stewart family generations. "I thought well,
this is the next generation and the new way, and indeed, she was right."
Despite the extra time and effort — animals
stuck in the neck tend to resist and thrash — Stewart began to
notice that the livestock was healthier and more lucrative. Abscesses
are easier to treat on necks than on rumps, she said, and the un-medicated
hindquarters are healthier for consumption.
Vaccination changes were just the first of the advancements
Wisby, 39, initiated on the Stewart Ranch in the Point Reyes National
Seashore. To combat skyrocketing input costs and competition from colossal
feedlots, Wisby has diversified, bringing in more than 200 chickens,
and created "Amanda’s Organic Eggs," available every
morning at the Station House in Point Reyes Station. She has also certified
some of the pastureland as organic, upgraded the beef quality of her
200 Angus cows to "natural," and maintained the horse camp
during the spring and summer.
New Generation
Wisby is part of the new ranching generation, working
to preserve viability on family farms in West Marin by opting for organic
livestock and pastures, diversifying their products and updating their
technology. While some old school ranchers in West Marin still scoff
at all that is "natural" or "organic," Stewart couldn’t
be happier with her daughter’s innovations, which she believes
are necessary for every generation.
"If she ran the ranch as I did, she would have
gone broke," Stewart said matter-of-factly. "If I had run
the ranch as my father did, I would have gone broke. If he had run the
ranch as his father did, he would have gone broke."
A tomboyish yet cherubic woman with close-cropped
gray hair, Stewart beamed from behind brown-tinted ray bans at her daughter,
who was pacing through the house with a phone at her ear and a five-foot
braid swinging behind her.
"I sit here with great satisfaction when I see
how she sells her calves, to whom she sells her calves and what she
gets for them," Stewart said, referring to the McGinley-Schilz
Feedyard in Nebraska. Wisby sells her certified Angus beef there as
Coleman Natural — a premium quality meat that has not been exposed
to antibiotics. It’s a higher grade of beef than her mother was
selling to Harris, and therefore bringing in more money.
Of course we’re not talking about a lot more,
but like many of the ranchers in the National Seashore who are trying
to sustain an endangered lifestyle, Stewart’s only financial goal
is to avoid bankruptcy. "The ranch is not a place to get rich fast,"
she said. "The ranch is a place to live and work and spend your
life."
Joann Stewart
Although some might think that a woman who spent her
life on a farm might be physically exhausted, Stewart remains sturdy.
On Tuesday her nails were clean, her palms soft and blemish-free, and
her back still works just fine, thanks. Aside from the sunspots dotting
her forearms, there is no hint that Stewart spent more than a half-century
baling hay, milking cows and operating tractors.
And now with Wisby at the helm, she has ample time
to enjoy her surroundings and her family. A true sportswoman, Stewart
often escapes to her cabin in the Sierras to target shoot and trout
fish, and also spends days at home watching football and reading historical
novels (Tom Clancy’s Every Man a Tiger on the Gulf War sits
on her nightstand).
These are the activities she loves, and it doesn’t
bother her in the least that they might characterize her as a jock.
At various times in her life, people questioned Stewart’s traditionally
masculine passions, and while she never felt discriminated against in
the West Marin farming community, at certain beef seminars both Stewart
and Wisby have noticed that they are in the minority.
"You are keenly aware of it, and it makes you
feel a little lonely," Stewart said.
Gender discrimination
The division hasn’t always been so unspoken.
When Stewart was an undergraduate at UC Davis, which had started a veterinary
school in 1948, she longed to join that program. She brought her transcript
of excellent grades to the dean and inquired about her chances of being
admitted.
"’What’s a nice little girl like you
want to be a veterinarian for? You need to go home and get married,’"
Stewart remembers being told, just before the back of her neck got hot.
She picked up her transcript and walked out. Now when she hears about
the disproportionate number of women becoming veterinarians, a smile
sneaks to her lips. And while she did not become a vet, she’s doing
the next best thing.
"You know how kids want to be doctors, lawyers,
Indian chiefs," she said. "Well, I always wanted to be a rancher.
I always wanted to be outside with my father doing things, and I didn’t
care whether it was driving the tractor or riding the horse."
The next, next generation
Now Stewart’s number one priority is her freckled,
eight-year-old grandson, Stewart Campbell, who lives at the ranch with
his parents and grandparents, and owns two jersey cows, Sara and Silvia.
He hopes to someday operate a dairy, just like his great-great-grandfather,
Sam, who bought the property in 1924. He ran the dairy and turned it
over to his son, Boyd, who ran it until 1973, when the Stewarts sold
the land to the National Park and leased it back. They exchanged their
dairy for beef cows that now munch grass on the 2,000 acres on either
side of Highway 1 between Olema and the Five Brooks trailhead –
probably a smart move.
California dairies have been failing at an alarming
rate over the past decade, but anything could happen, Stewart said,
so her grandson will just need to wait and see. "The cattle business
is changing, just as all of agriculture is changing," she said.
"If you don’t stay with it, it’s going to go past you."