How to Maintain a Mountain Meadow

Published in The Christian Science Monitor

            The north fork of the Burnt River rose and fell all spring as it passed through the ranch in Whitney Valley. Snow on the meadow and the ridges around the valley began to melt. The water ran into the river and brought it higher in its banks. The rushing waters of early spring carried remnants of winter ice downstream. A cold night and a cold day stopped the melting process, and the river dropped. Warmer days and nights followed each other, and the river stayed high for two or three weeks.

            Eventually, most of the local snow melted, and the river ran lower in its banks again. Then substantially warmer weather settled onto the Blue Mountains; the snow on the mountains above us started to melt, and the river rose again.

            During low water, I rode the motorcycle down to the ford a quarter of a mile below the house and crossed the river to work on the ditches that carried water onto the meadow. I cleaned out manure and grass with a sharp shovel, dug the ditches deeper where necessary, and built up eroded banks.

            I built dirt dams in the ditches to raise the water so it spilled over ditch banks and spread across the meadow. Where the ditches were too big to build dams of dirt, I used plastic curtains, supported by long, thin lodgepole pine poles. I moved the dams every few days, to run water across different areas.

            When the river ran high, I rode another half-mile down to the bridge, crossed it, and rode up a rough, narrow road through timber to the meadow. Sometimes, during high water, I rode up the ranch, left the motorcycle on our side of the river, walked on the log above water rushing white and wild through the log-crib dam, and worked on the irrigation at the top of the ranch.

            I worked many hours on the meadow, far from human company, but I was never alone. Birds of many species nest on or near the meadow. Deer and elk harvest some of the lush grass. Coyotes, bobcats, cougars, badgers, weasels, and mink course through the meadow while they hunt.

            I spread water across the meadow early and repeated the thorough wet-down three or four times. Mid July, I turned the diminishing water back into the river and let everything dry so we could get onto the meadow with machinery and cut, bale, and haul a hay crop.

            Long before we cut hay, mid-spring, when the grass started growing green and lush, I headed up the meadow to work on ditches, riding slowly and looking to see where water had spread and where it had not. A phalarope flew up out of the grass to my right and claimed she was so badly injured, she could barely fly. She would be easy prey for a predator such as I.

            "I'm already past your nest, love, and I promise to bring you and your nest no harm," I said. But she insisted. She adjusted her flight directly in front of the motorcycle. I said, "All right. Lead on," and I followed her. I was not in such a hurry that I couldn't indulge her desire. Within 100 yards, her injured wing was quite all right again. She flew rapidly away from me, and I rode straight on.

            That was about two weeks before a heavy rainstorm caught me out on the meadow on the motorcycle. I rode for home through driving rain. I had to cross a ditch about three feet wide on a thick board.

            The motorcycle's front wheel climbed onto the board just as I meant for it to. But the rear wheel spun and slipped to the side on the rain-slick board, and the bike slipped from under me. I splashed full-length into the ditch. Not five miles from being snow on the mountain, that water was cold. I stood up quickly in waist-deep water, uprighted the bike, which was still running on the board above the water, gave it throttle, and hung on. As soon as we both gained solid ground, I jumped on and roared across the meadow through pouring rain. Except for the fact that I couldn't see very well with heavy rain in my face, the rain didn't bother me much. I couldn't get wetter.

            Laura was delighted that I was home in time to go to town with our family and visiting relatives for lunch. I told them to go on without me. I stripped, heated bath water and myself, used the water, put on dry clothes, and watched the rain pour down from inside the warm, dry house.

            The next time I crossed the river, the sun shone warmly. I shoveled several ditches clear of grass that slowed the flow of water, then rode toward the top of the ranch to see how the ditches there were doing. I crossed the ditch I had fallen into, this time on a dry board. I easily forgave the ditch, the water, and the board for the cold wetness of the day I fell in, because any unpleasantness was long behind me.

            Memories of the growing grasses glistening brilliant green in the wet day, memories of the beauty of the rainstorm soaking Whitney Valley stayed pleasantly in my mind. I rode off the board bridge and turned up the meadow, parallel to the biggest ditch of all, in knee-high grass.

            An elk calf, whose mother had told it to stay flat, hidden in the grass, obeyed too well and didn't jump from cover until I was almost on top of it. There was only one way to avoid hitting the calf, by slamming the motorcycle flat to the ground, which I did, sailed over the falling handlebars past the startled animal, rolled, and came up onto my knees.

            The calf bolted about 100 feet, slowed, then stopped and looked at me, obviously wondering why humans and motorcycles engaged in such strange antics. For a moment, I froze with awe at the beauty of this wild creature, red, with large, pale spots, long legs, and graceful carriage. It walked hesitantly toward the timber. I didn't want to drive it any farther from where it was supposed to be, so I picked up the motorcycle and rode directly away from it. I was sure its mother would find it soon, but I knew it would be polite to get out of their territory as quickly as I could.

            I've never held title to a piece of land, but in the eight and a half years we took care of the ranch in Whitney Valley, I came to own the meadow in a way never accounted for in legal deeds. By my work on the meadow, by my knowledge of it, by my respect for all the wildlife that used the meadow and thereby held ownership for millenia before the idea of legal titles even came to this continent, I came to own the meadow in a way that few people own land. I and the meadow and the life force that moved so abundantly on the meadow moved toward being one to a degree that is rare in today's world of legal titles, bottom lines of profit, and the exigency of production for consumption.

            To a small degree, I became part of the meadow. The meadow will always be part of me.