Spawning of the Hitch

In this dry year the gates of the retention structure on Kelsey Creek were closed earlier than usual. The gates captured the flow from February rains as water backed up into the upstream riparian zone and helped recharge the local water table. But with the coming of the hitch migration in early March, the gates were opened allowing for the passage of thousands of the fish. It was easy to see them paired off or in gangs thrashing in the riffles. Many had passed through the gates headed upcurrent for points south. Continuous numbers were visible as they moved up from the lake and beneath the Soda Bay Road bridge. Some schools leisurely swam downstream, their spawning presumably completed.

A neighbor, remembering the heavy rains of an El Nino year in the 1980s, told me of the night when the flooded pear orchards were alive with splashing hitch under the light of a full moon. When the flood waters dropped, vast numbers were stranded, just as had been documented in old photographs a hundred years earlier.



The herring spawning runs that occur every Spring in New England are a local cultural touchstone, a promise of the coming end of harsh weather, and a tourist attraction. Called herring in some watersheds, such as on Cape Cod, "buckies" in others, particularly in Rhode Island, the species arriving in the brooks from the Atlantic is actually the alewife.

The hitch strongly resemble the menhaden or herring. Silvery, scaly and bony, they are an impressive ten-inch minnow found only in the tributaries of San Francisco Bay, Monterey Bay, and Clear Lake. Predators attend the spawning including ospreys, black-crowned night herons, great blue herons, and raccoons.







The creek as an artery of life coursing through Big Valley's monocultures of pears, grapes and walnuts, often offers surprises.
Beyond the hitch spectacle, there was a Western pond turtle, which somehow made a living in the creek, which is dry for half the year. There were also deer tracks, a rarity so far from the wooded hills surrounding the valley. Turkey feathers, too, were unexpected, until I remembered it was the first day of the Spring turkey hunt. Maybe the birds, like the deer, were seeking refuge far from where the hunters stalked. A camouflaged turkey hunter I spoke with earlier in the day at the Cache Creek wildlife area lamented the elusiveness of his quarry. I pitilessly told him about the flock of three hundred I had seen on private land.







After watching the massing hitch at the Soda Bay Road bridge I turned to look at Mount Konocti above the vinyards.



Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a peach tree bloomed.

Winter Into Spring

By March 7 the pruning of the pear orchard was about complete, the ospreys were back on their nest atop the old tower and the tree swallows had returned from points South.



The winter was mild and relatively dry with little of the carnage of other winters. A dead pit bull was an exception, attracting five vultures near the Renfrew Crossing.



Depending on the timing of the rains, the vagaries of temperature and other mysterious factors, the whole character of our
surrounding fields changes from Spring to Spring. One year is dominated by miner's lettuce, while vetch or grasses may hold sway in other years. This time mustard did well under the native black walnuts at Shady Rock Ranch.



In the bunkhouse I found a couple of old ranch manuals, which reminded me of the constant effort of imagination it takes to wring a living from the land.







Remnant groves of Valley Oaks (quercus lobata) have miraculously survived into the present century in Big Valley. They call to mind the idyllic 19th Century paintings of Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt. A grove along Gaddy Lane thrives on the margins of a vernal pool. The pool was not in evidence on March 7 this year, but in other years it can persist well into April.



The manzanitas I planted at the ranch were in full bloom in early March, as were the heirloom daffodils.







Barn owlets have hatched by this time of year. The species seems common in Big Valley. Various ranch and vinyard owners have erected owl nesting boxes, which supplement the old buildings traditionally favored as nest sites.

The Creek Comes Through

Rain and snow in the uplands finally brought Kelsey Creek back to life.





The riparian corridor wends its way through the pear orchards and vinyards of Big Valley providing the last best wildlife habitat for miles. The banks of silt are written over with the tracks of quail, raccoon, weasle, jackrabbit, cat, and canine.











The town was founded by pragmatists on the banks of the creek because of the wealth of water, fish, oak trees, soil depth and fertility. Early photographs show acres carpeted with millions of fish (the edemic hitch), the result of sudden, man-made fluctuations in water level. There may well have been aesthetic reasons for siting the town here as well, because the place resembled picture books of Eden. The spot marks the transition where the mountain creek changes character as it meets the
flat bed of the ancient lake. The lake had long since retreated to its present boundaries leaving Big Valley in its wake as oak studded savanna.

Kelsey Creek, as with nearby Adobe Creek, has served as the working plumbing of the valley. It has been worked hard.
It has been heavily exploited for water, fish, timber and gravel, yet it remains a zone of beauty.

If you are anywhere near the creek most days lately, the whine and roar of off-road vehicles shreds the air. If you walk or ride your horse along the creek, as my neighbors and I do, you might well be spooked by the sudden skidding of tires and the spray of gravel. You might be amazed at the extent of the ORV-caused erosion of the banks and the destruction of the creekside forest. You might ask yourself, "To what purpose is this happening?" You might wonder, "Are the citizens of this town and county unaware of what is happening to their creek, their land, their valley, their country?"



















A piece of broken mirror in the creekbed sent an inquiring eye to the sky.



Some guys got their pick up bogged down in the creek.

A Walk to Town

A cold front came from the North bearing rain and snow and a pair of red breasted sapsuckers. The sapsuckers perforated
the circumference of a young oak, releasing sugary sap, on which massed small black ants.

The oaks are shedding their leaves more slowly this fall drawing out our leaf management regime.





The pear and walnut sheds, monuments to Big Valley's agricultural civilization look more iconic at this quiet time of year.
Their surroundings are uncluttered by the comings and goings of people and trucks.



The creek has been yoked to the water needs of the farmers for a hundred years and now runs dry for five or six months each year. People over fifty years of age who grew up in the valley remember a year-round creek of summer swimming holes and big spring spawning runs of the edemic fish, the herring-like hitch. Decades of gravel mining have lowered this section of creek bed by as much as twenty feet. In spite of theses insults and the burden of near-continuous off-road vehicle abuse, the creek bed supports a young forest of cottonwood and willow. Quail coveys roost in this riparian swath. Jackrabbits shelter. Western toads and Pacific tree frogs breed. Flycatchers, woodducks and mergansers nest.



The creek is seen as a no-man's land. It's hard to find unfenced or uncultivated land in the valley. So the creek zone serves as a catch-all for refuse, for restless energies, for outlaw impulses.



For as long as anyone could remember the Merritt Road crossing of the creek was a ford, perfectly adequate, and notable if not for its beauty at least for its utilitarian charm. That changed this year with the construction of a bridge which possesses all the soul and scale of a freeway ramp. The thing is a brute urban rudeness at odds with the modesty of the "friendly country town."







A pair of cliff swallows made its nest under the new structure. In the previous season hundreds of pairs had nested in the
steel girders of a creekside, high-roofed shed now removed. Occupying that site is a new self-storage facility. This form of low-slung enterprise has recently become the characteristic and most visible architecture of Lake County.



A cottonwood festooned with mistletoe issued in the holiday trappings of Main Street.



I came unexpectedly upon a sacred space.



The town has its share of landmarks.







On the way back to the ranch I ran into Phil the screenwriter/producer and his horse, Chico.



It got colder Saturday night. Sunday it snowed on the Hopland Grade.