Can’t sleep: 11 p.m., 12 a.m., 1 a.m. I have been staring at this 95-year-old ceiling for hours. Thoughts running like hounds, knowing my reprieve is outside.
I’m out the door as I toss on a pair of boots, a warm hoodie and a cap. Everything is dark except for the slight brightness of the fog on the ridgelines. I walk out into our front pasture and plop myself down on a windrow alongside my dog. Aside from the crickets and the breeze, everything is silent. The blood in my veins rushes like a hive of hornets.
I don’t know how to save this place. I’ve spoken and written, prayed and cursed. I have stood on my soapbox with all my logic in hand, screaming it to the mountains. The fear of this ranch being underwater in a matter of years pins me to the ground.
A faint noise, and I realize the barn cat has found me. With one ear open for an owl, he cautiously makes his way to me, purring like it’s high noon. I sit with dog and cat, surrounded by sleeping beef cows. It’s perfect, and it’s so fragile.
When I was young, this time in the morning, Dad would be in the barn milking cows, music on and whistling as he went. While most of the world was sleeping, he and dozens of other ranchers were working double overtime so that people in the surrounding communities could have milk in their cereal and cream in their coffee.
Losing this ranch would cut me to the core, but it’s more than that. It would be another fatal blow to agriculture. A right hook to a way of life ingrained in this area. Dairy, beef, eggs, lamb, vegetable crops: all commodities that hard work put on your table. Agriculture built these rural communities but is now being reduced to a postcard, a pit stop or a photo op. Agriculture is implementing what your ancestors learned all while second-guessing your own ideas and hopes while Mother Nature laughs at you trying to set the schedule. Agriculture is not for the faint of heart, the weak or unmotivated. Resiliency is a must, and even so, circumstance can still take you out at the knees. This way of life will change you in some of the best ways possible.
Not that everybody needs to be a rancher, a farmer or a bleeding heart. But it would be good if everybody took a minute to put down their phone and listen to what’s around them. Smell the air and figure out what the day’s weather is going to be. Listen to the birds and observe how and why the vegetation changes with the seasons. Try to make sense of it all.
Sitting in this dark field, I want everyone to take a second to appreciate where the components of your meals come from. Acknowledge that there are people who love this agricultural life and dedicate their life’s work to it so you can have food on your table. Be proud that some of these people are your neighbors and have been doing it for generations. Not always at a profit, and never under the terms of instant gratification. Being born into this way of life is not a prerequisite to realizing how crucial it is that it continue on. Agriculture is not a burden industry to alleviate. It is a blessing and a keystone to a healthy, happy life for all. It’s not magic, it’s long, hard hours, rain or shine. It is a passion that feeds you.
Maria Ghisletta is a rancher and an engineer who lives in Hicks Valley.