So are you ready now for our photo journey down The Little Cholame Creek? Look, look in every direction there’s so many different trees, willows, cottonwoods, a few valley oaks, cat tails, and an entourage of little frogs, bugs, birds, and many more.

Now that the citizens of the world mostly all have cell phones with built in cameras it’s hard to be incognito. Being a cattleman for the last 65 years I’ve learned to be a pretty good observer of what’s going on around me. From a water trough that has a leak to the quantity of grass in a particular area of the ranch. Anyway as I was observing I was also noodling which is my way of mostly just thinking about “off the wall” kinds of nonsense.

No matter what a person has for sale it’s necessary to understand what your selling. So for the first few years I knew I had cattle to sell each year in the early part of June. I also, sold a right to hunt on the V6 to a Chrysler dealership owner for a new Chrysler station wagon to use each year and that was my total income. But I didn’t realize that what I really had to sell was sunlight that made the Cholame valley brighten anybodys day with it’s, take your breath away beauty.

Just about a month ago (and it only took 450 million years to come to my attention) I learned that in many of our soils worldwide there is a living organic fertilizer by the hard-to-pronounce name of Mycorrhizal Fungi. Actually, it’s way more than a fertilizer, it’s a symbiotic friend to most plants.

I think that manners are necessary for all living things. Consider the Honey Bee. An average bee hive has 30,000 to 50,000 bees all living in the same house. Most all of the population is made up of worker bees that spend their time pollinating flowers and gathering nectar and pollen. Now can you imagine without manners how all these bees are going to get in and out of the hive through a very small opening many times a day with wings that flap up and down 12,000 to 15,000 times per minute.

It certainly made me think how lucky Zee and I have been to be able to spend a lifetime raising a family and to manage all the different kinds of livestock and nurture the many green growing things and doing it in harmony with Mother Nature. All near our town of Parkfield, population 18, in the heart of the Cholame Valley of Monterey County. So next year bring your horse and rope and we can all pledge our allegiance to the greatest country of all time and then we’ll rodeo.

Lily had parked her utility tractor that she was cleaning corrals with at the gate going into her yard then on into her house to get for me, two boxes of cereal that could only be bought at Costco in SLO. So with two big boxes of cereal that made me walk with my head up. Out the door I went but unbeknownst to me in just a few more steps I was about to be sent flying as one of the two forks that were designed to lift things that could weigh up to a ton and was about three inches off the ground that would grab my right ankle and send me on one of those

I firmly believe that our cattle drives bring out the best in people. Jack, how can you say that? Because I see our new Cattle Drivers arrive in Parkfield on a Thursday afternoon and most are wearing a look of anticipation and a little anxiousness about what comes next and by Sunday afternoon one is heard to say “I think I’ve done something extraordinary and next year I’m coming back to do it again.”

My wife Zee and our daughters Katy and Lilly moved into our newly built 1,100 square foot house with two bedrooms and one bathroom in the spring of 1962. We had bought 8,000 acres from Clyde Taylor and our new neighbors were all a buzz about how this new 27 year old kid could pay $50/ acre for a ranch that wasn’t worth a dime over $20/ acre.

Its April 14 and Honey Bees have landed on the V6. Yesterday was my long awaited entry into the Honey Bee business. In the three preceding drought years I had a bee man who after using his bees to pollinate the Almond trees in the San Joaquin Valley he would bring his bees to the V6 to forage for nectar and pollen.

It’s become an annual affair to go back to my son Greg and his wife's ranch where they have a rustic cabin that’s very comfortable. After some snacks and a big drink of water it’s time for the reason all 20 or so of family and friends have driven for about an hour from the V6 to the cabin which is only 15 miles away, it gives you some idea that this ranch road is not made for any car that has only seen White Lines and Stop Lights. I’m thinking, do I really need this hour long hike to the Waterfall that most all of the family does every year? Jack your almost 88 years old.

The grand finale for the week will be the grand opening of the Middle Ridge Sound Studio. Cian has come from Ireland with his wife Lauren, John and Barb’s oldest daughter. Lauren met Cian while she was studying in Ireland.

One of the magazines I subscribe to is Bloomberg Businessweek. It explores a wide range of subjects that will both raise your hopes for the future of our planet Earth with new technology. Then on the next page a different journalist will try to convince you that armageddon is just around the corner.

Our power is out here at our house as is everybody else’s in the Cholame Valley. It goes out fairly often as we’re at the end of the PG&E line but it’s usually a quick fix. But this time the fix wouldn’t be quick as snow started falling about 5:00 P.M. on February 24th and it’s snowing clear down to Parkfield at 1,500 feet elevation. The weatherman said it would be just a dusting but at this moment what I see is a sky full of great big wet snowflakes.

Good question, I have finally made my peace with the idea that it's alright to do nothing. Obviously, all the things that it takes to stay alive don’t count. So Jack, what’s left? Well, I get to observe and to ponder.

So whatever dream a grandchild might dream or a city kid from downtown Los Angeles it can come true. But for it to happen it will take passion first then commitment and persistence then the work part will come easy. And to those that worry, that a Cowboy might become obsolete on the V6, rest easy as there will always be horses to ride and cattle to be gathered on The Cowboy Side of California.

Zee and I just spent the nicest day at Lily and Mike’s calf branding; our daughter and son in law. Calf brandings are a necessary and fun part of the cattle business. The necessary part is the hot iron brand that is put on each calf to show ownership.

If there’s nothing new under the sun I don’t know what to write about but I’m really in a writing mood. So, I guess it will have to be about what hasn’t been discovered yet.

So it wasn’t long before, with Bill driving and I watching how he shifted gears and at a stop the balance it took to lift your left foot up (the clutch pedal) which would engage the engine that would start the Ford moving but at the same time, you had to press down on the gas pedal to speed the engine up. This coordinated movement of my right and left foot at the same time ended in a lurch of the Ford leading to a dead stop.

I don’t know how many years in the past that I awoke to the realization that the V6 was not just another piece of real estate to be sold with no regrets. What came to mind was the word abhorrent and in my next breath loathing was vile enough to describe the idea of selling the V6. It amounted to the same as selling one of my children which was not going to happen.