John-David Hughes:  

WReturned to our beloved Sierra. Tiny forest ranch. Heaven. We were, living a pleasant existence on the Central Coast. Latest shorty.... 12/22/09 Fresno and North, Central Valley Images The drive up to Sacramento was an eye-opener. I was used to the old blank, dusky-blue hazes of the valley before winter settled; skeletal trees beside disheveled barns and outbuildings, farmhouses sad and wan in the dim light. Fields fallowed, groves drowsing. Now, lights and civilization and sleepy off ramps that rise, fall, with greater numbers. Gasoline is easy to find on the highway now. No need to sleep beside a closed Signal station and wait for morning, for the new lease on concrete freedom..... The farms are ill-used now, and fallowed, most likely awaiting the transformation from productive soils to cul-de-sacs and streetlights, two car garages and the irony of the reduction of the cold-wet earth to asphalt and curbs, urban nightmares. Where once stone fruit rose and swelled in spring to summer to harvest, the gangs fester and boil for imagined or real reasons and the roadside is littered with the result of such change. Rusted implements stand or lean in unused wreckage. Only these Valley scenes occlude the what once was with the what is now. The inelegant development waltz, with its promise of tax revenue and of living instantaneously; houses built to lie empty, languishing as the furtive builders and their supporters slide and slip into the dark recesses of immediate gain at the expense of community. Boards and city fathers in conspiratorial perfidy, Diogenes would find none of consequence or of gravity. Across the Valley, once, the Sierra Nevada, the ¿snow-covered saw of the Spaniard¿s discovery, rose in relief against the eastern sky, proclaiming, ¿here is water.¿ The rivers ran from these places clear and often deep, north and west to the sea. Beside the highway those many years ago, the new canals brimmed with blue waters destined to the farmlands. Now, the possible view is dimmed, blanked by risen dust and smoke from the farms that drank from the canals. The new cities grown, and the old ones falling to ruin from within and from purposeful mismanagement contribute their offal. Feedlots and industrial dairies store beef and milk and create ordure and filth even as they are prepared for milking and for slaughter. Methane and unpleasant gasses supplant the flowered Valley spring and summer. Instead, Turlock has big box stores, as do Modesto and Merced. Brilliant lights and a whole strip of new names and frontages that shout 'crowds here too!' Stockton, poor ill-used Stockton, looked slattern but perky, dolled up for Friday, but stood up by the passing cars and the occupants who headed for other amusements. The tractor-trailers rock along and the spinning front wheel lugs flash like wheels in the race in Ben Hur...not too close, no, oh he's weaving...oh, it's me! The mileage recorders on the semis dance and gimbal on the rear tractor wheels as we pass abreast, uncertain whether they should spin on the axle, or remain level and on the job measuring life passed or places travelled. Highway 99 has lost some of its music and the thumping accompaniment of the seams and joints, but enough remain, that when crossed at speed, the old thrill of the 'road' seeps back in: The 56 Ford two-door Crown Vic rises in memory, bench seats, pressed close to and breathing Susan's golden hair spinning and flying and her perfume, her perfume, on the bench seats, no seatbelts, Wolfman Jack howling on the AM and the 302 Thunderbird with the four barrel sucking 15 cent gas, the dual glass packs thundering, and the road is so, so open for a kid at 17 and nothing but north to travel.... (All rights reserved) 11/02/09 Cider Making It is November. The full moon is lowering in the west at this new hour, so peculiarly strange, an artificial time, though the moon doesn't care. The sea yesterday was blue-diamond and the Bay was pouring its highest tide in a race, back to the sea. The easterly winds were carving the waves into spray-topped perfection. The tourists were saying, "Oh!" This confounding California coast, so different, so familiar, yet, strange just now. There are no discernible seasons, just more, or less, sunshine. The winds bring warm air from the land and press the fog far out, as far as the horizon and more. We were at the ranch last week for the pressing. The sun shone as bright as at the coast, but someone had taken the leaves and painted them, the air at 4000 feet left us breathless in the near frozen morning. The favorite oak had dropped a huge branch in our absence. Shocking change, yet in the natural order of things, there will be firewood for the iron stove in the house. Beyond the Valley, west, the Coast range lies, and beyond that the never-winter of the Pacific shore. Across the canyon, toward the four-lane, the colors range from gold, to brown, to some reds, and the buckeyes, first to green, first to skeletal destitution, warn of winter. The apple orchard has become a feasting place for the coyotes, and the few bears. The fallen fruit will soon be tumbled into the ancient juice press with a pleasing sound from years and years of working this way, juice pouring from between the oaken slats. This apple press, which once lay unused for a half century, repaired by the youngest ranch mechanic years ago. He worked to clear the oak leaves and the past, though not too much, from its workings. It stands ready near the tubs of apples and the barrels. Black, gray oaken staves, burnished bronze and iron. Timeworn, worthy, waiting. The path that this press took allowed it to serve in orchards in Utah in 1854, Nevada in 1876, and at the foot of the pass that opens to Yosemite, Lee Vining, until 1903. With new ways of pressing, the simple machine was cast aside, yet not left behind when the family moved once again, over the passes to the sweet pastures of the west slope. Now, burnished with new use, the handle spins more and more slowly as it presses and presses. One hundred and fifty years, the purpose for its manufacture still observed. A center point of this harvest night, the press, wet-stained, drools juice into the small barrels as the young men pull and twist the screwed top down and down and down, until apple mash remains. The mash becomes feed for the yearling calves, some juices as ciders will ferment and age, and more will remain as sweet juices for memorable ranch breakfasts. This work has to be done in the light of the lanterns and the porch lights at the side of the ranch house. Gathering is done in the day. Children and adults race to fill the baskets and spill them into the wagon pulled by the ancient John Deere. Contests and culling, only the fallen apples will do. Darting in and out beneath the ancient trees, the grafted trunks swelled with age and time, the children do the best work. The apples will lie, bathed in the sweet well water drawn from the near spring, the artesian one that gives fresh, cool water in the deepest summer's furnace heat. Now, though, the winter chill lies in that water, taking each finger and removing the warmth that was felt at each hand held, in each caressed cheek, in each wrapped-around hug of return and of welcome. Pressing is for the night and the gathering of friends and family, some postmodern druidism, worship appropriate to the harvest. It must be done when one's fingers become numb from picking and culling the washed apples, scooping handfuls into the press. Winter cannot come until this work is done. Breath steams from each smiling face. Friends and dear family, close and working in the cold, laughter and shrieks of surprise as each hand stirs the wash barrels full of sweet well water and the apples. Hands stinging as they are warmed at the fire, the hard ciders and the sweet from last year's work making the fun more piquant and worth the doing, for more than just the cider. The tables are piled high with the ranch bounty. The ovens have given bread and pies; the pit-roasted pig and beef lie sliced and steaming. The children shiver, not so much with the cold as with the anticipation of perhaps having waited so long for supper. This family has grown, too, and has added more and more to the hands at the press, the ovens, and the dance. Their shrill voices affirm the continuation and the future for these ranch people and the others just back from college, just back from Asia, just down from the high Sierra and the Valley, from the Coast. There is music. There are lights strung haphazardly across the nearer pasture. Those brave enough gather, crushed grass underfoot, and dancing, sing the familiar and the new songs at odds with the rules of form, meter, sharps and flats. The fire dances, too, sends sparks at each added log in signal and in salute. Ranch life, celebrated. In the morning, the yearling calves will feast on the result of the previous night's pressing, then onto the cattle trucks for their winter below the frozen clouds. The line of cider barrels soldier themselves, parade rest, into the dark barn, to sleep and wait the next fall, the next harvest, the next pressing. The work of the ranch, unceasing, respected, observed. Winter hovers just uphill. Between these days of slumber in the dark, there are fairs and tastings, gatherings and smiles, cowboy wassails and friendships. Calf roping, round-ups and rodeos will intervene. Wood cutting, building, farming, work, hard work will be done. The children will grow; small boys and girls will flourish and flower and perhaps bring the next year's new faces. Babies, a new beau, or a beauty to be added to the joys of such hard work, which is not really so difficult. The bea...Expand for more