Category Archives: Rural Life

When the Rhubarb Turns

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In aspen groves all over the West, fall color is almost a religious experience. The intensity of the chartreuse, yellow, orange, and red leaves seems surreal — no Photoshop needed. We wait for the turning of the leaves in late September and early October with devoted anticipation.

But maybe I’ve focused too narrowly on the brilliance of autumn. This morning, the last day of June, I discovered this leaf the size of my head blazing away in the garden. Our rhubarb sprouts in April, grows like crazy through spring and early summer, then dies back with the first heat. Fall color comes early for the rhubarb and our patch is going out with a flourish.

Home Improvement

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Our house will never make it on HGTV, but that’s no deterrent. This time of year, I’m driven to home improvement against the odds. During the past few weeks of do-it-yourself drudgery, I’ve discovered a handful of universal truths.

Homeowner Maxims

  • Washing windows in the Great Basin is a Zen practice — appreciate the process because the result will be short-lived.
  • Never buy cheaply made garage doors. Even if you don’t regret it, someone else will.
  • Always, always, always drill a “through-hole” when screwing down decking. If you don’t know what that is, find out before cursing future generations.
  • Paint will not hold your house together, no matter how much is applied. To really hold a house together, you need baling wire and duct tape.

Staff of Life

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I’ll admit, growing vintage wheat varieties is kind of a weird hobby. It started when I came across an old photograph of Mono Basin pioneer Chris Mattly, standing waist-deep in a field of wheat. Surprisingly, this flourishing field grew near the alkaline shores of Mono Lake at an elevation of nearly 7,000 feet. The sage-covered slopes of the Eastern Sierra are hardly your classic wheat belt. The snows lie deep in that country and if you blink twice you’ll miss the growing season. Yet, back in 1922, acres of waving seed heads covered Mattly’s farm. How did he do it?

Mattly’s wheat field started me down a path of agrarian research from which I’ve never recovered. Wheat, being a domesticated grass, will grow just about anywhere. Since it’s easy to propagate new varieties, family farmers like Chris Mattly could breed grain to suit their climates and cuisines. Up until the so-called Green Revolution introduced petroleum-based fertilizers and insecticides in the 1950s, all wheat was grown organically. Successful varieties had to be hardy, adaptable, and disease and pest resistant.

During the Green Revolution, wheat breeders shifted their attention to new varieties that performed like athletes on steroids — yields were off the charts but artificially induced. When interest in growing wheat organically resurfaced decades later, the petroleum-dependent varieties failed. A handful of wheat breeders scrambled to find what remained of the pre-industrial strains. Wheat preservationists worried that valuable genetic resources were becoming extinct. Wheat preservationists? Yep. Even ancient crops have their passionate proponents and I became one of them.

How did I help preserve vintage wheat varieties when I’ve never owned more than a measly third-of-an-acre? I got acquainted with wheat breeders at Washington State University in Pullman. They sent me seeds to test based on my climate and organic methods. They also directed me to USDA seed banks so I could request more varieties to try. Many of these old varieties hadn’t been “grown out” for decades. Seed has to be fairly fresh to remain viable, so by growing, harvesting, storing, and keeping careful records of heirloom varieties we help keep them alive. I grew dozens of little patches in the backyard, checkerboards of bowing, graceful grasses. They have names like Pacific Bluestem, Regenerated Defiance, White Fife, Jumbuck, Quality, Burt, Coulee, and a modern upstart from Utah called Golden Spike.

My husband teases me about how I fuss over those rising stems. We barely grow enough to eat but they are stunning when their whiskered heads form, full and tall. There’s something primal and satisfying about cultivating wheat — the ancient staff of life — right in the backyard. Amazing. I can harvest a tiny remnant of an agricultural legacy stretching back ten thousand years to the Fertile Crescent!

It may not look like much, but if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, we’ll at least have enough wheat to make a dozen pancakes before we’re forced to survive on rangy jackrabbits.

Yellow Willow River

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The willow are waking up along Camas Creek in the Warner Range. On a windy spring day their glowing stems undulate down the drainage, a yellow flowing river.

The willow are the first to talk about the coming of spring. Sometimes their stems color up before the snow is gone. They’re thinking about catkins and leaves. They’re thinking about trailing their roots in the thawed creek and the yellow-headed blackbird tickling their upper branches with its song. They’re thinking of the Paiute basketmakers harvesting their straight stems before the leaf nodes swell. Will the elders come with their sharp knifes and old ways?

Buckaroo Style

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If Winnemucca isn’t prime Buckaroo habitat, it’s pretty darn close — especially during Ranch Hand Rodeo. Town fills up with big trucks, big hats, big mustaches, and big fun on the first weekend in March.

Part of the fun is the shopping. Western trade items line the upstairs balconies and front aisle of the cavernous Winnemucca Events Center. Outside, it’s still Nevada winter — gray skies, hard-used snow, and brown dirt — but inside it’s another story.

Check out this booth selling wild rags. (For the uninitiated, these are the generous, billowy, silky scarfs worn by Buckaroos and Buckarettes — and you thought they just wore plain old blue bandanas?!?)  If you lived in a landscape of monotones all winter, by early March, you’d be after color — any color. And patterns? Wild is where it’s at. Don’t worry if the colors clash. This is no time to be subtle.

For you Fashionistas, here’s how you put the style together. This upstart Buckaroo may not have won the kid’s roping contest this year but he sure looked good swinging a loop in his square-toed fancy-stitched orangey-colored boots, plaid sweater, and polka dot wild rag. And looking good is a lot of what being a Buckaroo is about. Although, if your team can win the Calcutta while you’re at it, so much the better.

Passing the Bota

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Have you ever tried drinking out of a bota bag? The Basques make it look easy, but believe me, it’s harder than it looks. My brother and I had botas when we were kids. They weren’t the “real” ones made of goat skin sealed with pitch but a modern version with a plastic liner. We mostly used them to carry water on hikes but sometimes Mom would let us fill them up with grape juice and practice drinking Basque style. There were rules, though. We had to wear our worn out clothes and take the botas outside — yeah, we got grape juice stains everywhere.

This weathered painting on the side of the famous (or infamous) Winnemucca Hotel shows the basic technique for drinking from a bota. At arm’s length, you squeeze wine from the bag into your mouth without spilling. With wine, there probably comes a point where the longer you practice, the harder it gets!

Once you master drinking from a bota, you can attend any traditional Basque affair with confidence. In case you haven’t experienced one firsthand, Basques really know how to party. There’ll be eating, drinking, and dancing with gusto. And everyone is super friendly. It might be helpful to know a few Basque phrases, like Zer moduz? (How are you?), or Zatoa pasatzen? (Can I have a pull off your bota bag?) With practice and luck, you’ll fit right in. And if someone tells you, Nire amumak zuk baino mila aldiz hobeto dantzatzen du, (My grandma could dance you under the table,) don’t take it as an insult. Considering the Basque grandmas I know, it would just be a statement of fact.