CHRONICLES OF AN ANGLO-CALIFORNIAN RANCH.
ByMARGARET INNES.
THE RESERVOIR—CHINESE MEDICINES—DUST—ADVANTAGES OF THE LIFE—THE RAINS—FLOODS.
T
hatsummer, our first on the ranch, we made a large reservoir to hold 200,000 gallons. There was a convenient gulch or dip, which drained a fair stretch of hill slope, and which lent itself well for the purpose. We meant also to run our share of the flume water into this reservoir whenever it was not being used on the ranch.
Many waggon loads of sand from the Silvero Valley had to be hauled up by the little grey team, and endless barrels of cement from the station at El Barco five miles away. It was a long tiresome job. There was plenty of rock, with which to build the dam, lying about on the hills, but to lift these pieces on to the sledge, improvised for this purpose, and bring them over hill and dale to the reservoir site and there unload them, was both very hard work and at times a little dangerous, for the rocks were often so large that they were not easily controlled, and were always threatening to roll over on to the feet or hands of the “master builder” and his men.
There were some bad bruises before all the names of the workers were written on the cement top of the wall as an artistic finish to the dam.
That was a very dry year, the summer extending till December 5th, and after a dry winter too. For this reason the breaking up of the ground was all the harder, especially that part which had been trodden hard by cattle grazing for many years.
Again the ranchers went to work to manufacture some implement that would help in this difficulty, and a “clod masher” was made out of some of the furniture cases, and it did very good work.
We planted cypress trees too, all along the windswept side of the ranch, as these grow very fast, and we wanted to break the face of the wind.
The rabbits, squirrels, and gophers gave us some anxiety that first year by nibbling at the bark of the young lemon trees. This had to be stopped at once, for if the bark is badly peeled off right round the stem of a young tree, the tree will probably die. The approved remedy is to paint the bark with blood, a most disagreeable job, especially in glaring hot weather. However, the trees were not touched after that, for the rabbits are dainty people.
A good store of firewood had to be hauled from the Silvero Valley before the rains should come, and some months earlier we had stored away our winter supply of hay in the barn. In the winter we also planted an orchard of all varieties of fruit for our own use—pears, apples, prunes, figs, apricots, peaches, vines, strawberries, and raspberries. Altogether we were very busy and worked very hard, though we took our pleasures too, sandwiched in between. We did a great deal of driving and riding about among the different mountain paths, and we still enjoy this distraction as much as ever.
To take our lunch with us and stay away all day, the boys riding ahead, with the dogs following them, darting in among the brush, wildly happy over every pretence of a scent, leaping high over every obstacle, and adding so much to our enjoyment by their evident delight, is a pleasure without flaw. I must not forget also a gun or two, stowed away in the bottom of the carriage, for something worth killing may cross our path. Jack-rabbits are not good eating but are good sport, and as they injure the trees, every rancher shoots them when he gets the chance. The dainty elegant road-runner must never be hurt, and woe be to the “tenderfoot” who is tempted to shoot that pretty, impudent-looking little fellow, the skunk, who flourishes his handsome black and white tail in your very face. If you were a Chinaman, you would secure him on any terms, even his own. All Celestial medicines and cordials seem to be compounded of the most offensive abominations that can be discovered; it follows, of course, that the skunk is a highly-prized treasure in their pharmacopœia. What deceits we have practised and what lies we have told during Wing’s reign in the kitchen! He was for ever wanting to doctor us, and had always just the right remedy by him for whatever complaint was to the fore. We soon becamevery wary indeed of showing any sign of physical trouble before him, for we were at once pounced upon with hot drinks of villainous compounds and rank smell, and we had to be very diplomatic so as to escape drinking them there and then, and thus get the chance of pouring them down the bath sink when his back was turned.
We always felt this to be a very dangerous business, for the smell threatened to betray us.
For rheumatic pains he eagerly recommended a sort of rattlesnake jam, which is made with chunks of that attractive reptile cooked in whisky, and potted for seven years, when it is ready for use, and, according to Wing, is an infallible cure.
But though these various animals are spared for different reasons on our little excursions, the Californian quail are very delicate food, and a most welcome addition to the ranch larder, where variety is a little difficult to get. They also are very good sport. Wild pigeons, too, are not to be despised.
These driving expeditions are best, however, in the winter, spring, and early summer, when the sun is not so hot, and when the roads have been rained upon, and the terrible dust is laid. Is there any dust like the Californian dust after a dry season, I wonder? My husband insists that in Australia and the Cape, and other places where he and I have never been, the dust is infinitely worse than in California; he also reminds me of the dust in railway travelling at home, and insists that this was quite as disagreeable and much more dirty. We do not agree on this point. But as I said before, one accustoms oneself to almost anything, and though we certainly take fewer pleasure drives at the end of the summer, waiting rather always for the first rains, yet when I remember my first horror at San Sebastian, on driving through waves, and clouds, and curtains of dust, then I know by comparison that I have reached a very philosophical state of mind about this, one of the necessary and undeniable evils.
What one enjoys most in this life is, I think, the absolute freedom; that and the great stretches of space around one are a constantly increasing delight. To look across these great sweeps of mountains, range after range, and see in the distance the silver line of the Pacific, and to feel the clean, pure wind in one’s face, is like a baptism of new life.
At first the strange bareness of these mountains almost wounds one’s eyes, and their true beauty is not recognised. But as one learns to know them better, their charm grows more and more striking, and I almost doubt if after a few years one would wish for any change in their bold bare lines. In the full midday sun they are not lovely, and in some moods one would call them almost ugly, so uncompromising are they in their grimness and bareness: but their time of triumph is when the changing lights of sunset begin, when they are flooded with such matchless colouring, so delicate and rich, that they seem positively unreal.
During the winter rains all the odd jobs of repairing are done: soldering, harness-cleaning and mending, painting of waggons or carts, and carpentering.
Most Americans are clever-handed, and can turn from one job to another with unusual facility. To see a man, who earns his living by driving a delivery waggon, turn to in his spare time and build a neat and comfortable addition to his house, an extra bedroom, and perhaps an enlargement of the sitting-room, with a nice bit of verandah out of this, and all well planned and well finished, is apt to knock the conceit out of the young fellow from home, who prides himself on being so “clever with his tools.”
Our first winter was a very dry one, to our great regret. The rainfall was much below the average and much below what was needed for the land. Less than seven inches fell during the whole season, and an average good fall is about fourteen inches. So the land was never thoroughly soaked, and what was a more anxious matter still, the storage of water “way back” in the mountains was too scant, and pretty certain to run short before the long dry season should be over. So, indeed, it proved, and we were greatly harassed, when the water company began to cut down our rations, leaving us barely enough to keep our young trees going; and certainly not enough to give them a chance of doing their best, however diligently the “cultivator” might be kept at work.
All that summer we were busy, tending the trees and adding further improvements to the ranch. When the second winter came, we were hopeful then all our anxieties about water would be set at rest by a good generous rainfall.
The dry season had extended unusually far into the winter months, no rain having fallen till December 5th, when we had a few small showers. Within three weeks of this, it seemed as though we were to get our desires to the full, for the rain came down in torrents.
The Silvero river, which was supposed to flow in the pretty valley below us, of which we got such a charming glimpse from our verandahs, had hitherto appeared to be a dry sandy stretch more like a rough country road than a river, and we had laughed at the very notion of a bridge being ever needed to cross its dangerous waters.
Wonderful tales of the miraculous possibilities of the land are of course told here to the credulous tenderfoot, and we did not feel inclined to believe our friends’ accounts of that very river’s deep and dangerous waters during some rainy winters.
We had to make an apology that second winter. For nine days the waters poured down in an almost solid sheet; and with hardly any cessation night or day. We were all anxious and excited over this storm; and constantly on the watch to see what would happen. At the end of the first twenty-four hours, we had rather a scare over our reservoir. The sudden inrush of water from the hill slopes around had filled it so quickly that when my husband went up in the driving rain to see what state it was in, he found, to his dismay, that the water had reached the very tops of the dam, and was just beginning to sweep over, making at once a deep and widening cut all along the lemon trees below.
The new wooden floodgate was so swollen with the rain that it was as though riveted into its place, and refused to open. In a few moments my husband had darted down to the barn, and returning with an axe, broke the floodgate in pieces, when the danger was over, and the water rushing away in a great heavy mass found its way into a gully where it could do no mischief. We saw, from the deep cutting made in those few moments by the water when it swept over the dam, what terrible damage might be worked by these rains. But we could hardly believe our eyes or ears however, when we saw in the valley the glistening of the water in the broad river-bed, and heard the roar as though of a cataract.
During the first lull that occurred we all hurried down to the valley to examine more closely what was going on. We found such a turbulent, dangerous-looking river tearing down the valley, that we were perfectly fascinated, and would fain have stayed and watched it for hours.
The river had already cut a great deep bed for itself out of the wheat-sown meadows of the valley, and every moment a great slice of the bank would give way and silently slide down into the water, which swallowed it up relentlessly as it rushed past.
Great trees were lying in the river, in some places all across it, making rough dams where the water fought and leapt even more fiercely; and as we stood there, we were horrified to see one of the dear trees, so highly prized in this bare land, go trembling down into the flood. The sound of their roots straining and cracking as the rushing floods tried to sweep them away from their last bit of anchorage, was most painful; it seemed almost like a human struggle. All the ground was more or less like quicksand, and we had to be careful where we stepped, lest we should be “mired.” As the rain came on again heavily, we were forced to return home, though very unwillingly; it was a scene of such wonderful excitement.
We were very anxious, too, about friends whose ranches were some miles further up the valley, and whose land lay mostly rather low down and near the river-bed. We found afterwards that both had suffered considerable loss, besides great anxiety. On one ranch the river had in one night swept away eight acres of beautiful olive-trees that were in full bearing. This was a very cruel blow, over which the whole neighbourhood, I think, mourned, but which the young rancher and his wife bore with the brave cheery spirit which is, I think, a noticeable charm in most Americans. The young wife gallantly carried the heavier share of the blow, by dismissing her servant, and herself doing the housework and cooking.
(To be concluded.)