Crispy golden hills stretch behind me, their short and stout summits struggling to kiss the sky resting closely above them. Ahead of me is the Diablo Range. From where I stand, the summit is clouded by a mix of dense chaparral and blue oaks. Manzanitas punctuate the hardest to reach spots on the cliff sides, grasping onto the walls that hug the creek. You’ll find those guys where the bravest won’t lay their roots. With a schloop I unstick my feet from the creek bed, having sunk a few inches while focusing myself in for the morning.
My truck is parked up on the riparian bank a couple hundred meters back, shaded under the grizzliest live oak I could spot. It’s a classic Toyota 4Runner painted in a pine green color, the leather seats fitted onto the chassis before I was even born. Walking back to the bank, I repeat to myself loppers, dip-net, knife, gloves, torch, calipers, iPad and snacks. After reaching the truck and popping the back, it’s time to get ready. I grab at a thick pair of green canvas waders, still damp inside from yesterday's trek up the creek. The rank smell of creek water and sweat fill my nose. Gross. Pushing my feet through the sticky rubber interior, the plasticky material clings to my leg hairs and pulls while I straighten myself. I throw the rest of my gear into a battered backpack and swing it over my shoulder. The loppers are hanging from a carabiner on the side of the bag, the dip-net is too big to keep in the bag—it’s a meter long version of a butterfly net. Instead, it lives in my right palm, at times a walking stick and at others a temporary holding for frogs.
I rummage through my truck for another bit, grabbing documents and anything that might come in handy. My backpack is stuffed with equipment, but I’d rather overestimate my needs. In the glove compartment is the crumpled work-order. I spent last night glossing over the sheet, but I give it another look before heading back to the creek.
“Two and a half miles of creek length, and meet up with the crew at noon”, I remind myself. Folding the document into fourths, I place it in the kangaroo pouch on the front of my waders. I head back towards the creek, grabbing at the exposed roots of a bay laurel and lowering myself over the bank. This time of year, the creek is a patchwork of dry spots and pools. There's the occasional long stretch of water but it's become less common. Yesterday’s trek was mostly dry. It took me from the urbanized mouth of the Suisun Bay to the inland and grassy Diablo Shadows. Now in open space, the hedgerows have been replaced with a more natural live oak landscape and the grass is dotted hastily with woodrat middens, mounds of sticks and plant matter that the rodents accumulate in a pile and call their home. I listen intently for the frogs’ croaks but allow my mind to wander as I push up the creek, meandering thoughts fueled by flows and hushed by the ebbs. Moving my boots across the gravel bed, I think of the last conversation with my grandmother. She asked what I do for work, and I clumsily explained that I catch frogs in the mountains. Chuckling to herself she said, “even here we find our way back to the field”. While jokingly said, a piece of me plays with the thought and replays her words. “Even here we find our way back to the field”. Growing up there were countless lectures from my father on the importance of school and his dream to send us to college so that we wouldn’t have to labor as he did. I linger on the irony and rub my shoulder, numbing under the weight of the bag. My father is a baker in the San Francisco Mission District, working there for some twenty years now. Before crossing the Rio Grande, he cultivated milpa and lived on our family farm in the Mexican pueblo of Cuquío, its name translates to the valley of the frogs in the Tarascan language. I spent much of my childhood with family in Cuquío, learning how to farm and tend to our animals from the men in my family. Amongst the trickle of water, the first croak reverberates meters ahead. I instantly recognize the guttural rumble. The pitch is too high to be a bullfrog. Another croak rings and I'm assured. My paces muffle as I stop picking my feet up, opting to shuffle against the gravely bed. I slowly wrap my fingers around the neck of my net. With knees bent I continue to creep, farming a clouded trail of sediment with my sole, dying the channel brown.
He sits in the nook of a fallen oak, basking at the water's edge. I stare for what feels like hours, tracing the olive blotches that splatter his salmon pink back. I don't dare move yet. If he's here, there must be more nearby. He sits unperturbed while my eyes scan the length of the log, the cavities in the earth, the undercut bank, and scattered stream notches. Not seeing another frog, I keep moving towards him. I prepare my dip-net, submerging it several inches into the creek and extending it in front of me, guiding the path forward like a sort of compass. Rana draytonii allows no wiggle room; the moment he senses danger, he will retreat to the nearest hide. I bring the wooden frame of the dip-net now within inches from his body, watching him from below. There are no more meandering thoughts. There is only me and him. My body strikes and only then my mind reacts. In less than a second the net rears its face from beneath the water, slicing the channel and leaving a wake of bubbles in its tracks. My forearms trace the figure of an 8 and cleave the net back into the water. My right hand immediately releases the slender neck of the dip-net and chokes the cloth around the frame, trapping the frog below.
I caught my first frog as a child in Cuquio. They’re abundant in the small river town giving name to the “valley of the frogs.” In those times I caught frogs under the guise of childhood games and fun, uncovering them from their hides and grabbing at their wriggling legs while they anxiously hopped away.
The grip of my right hand loosens, and I reach in, placing the frog in the C between my thumb and forefinger. While inspecting his body my assumption is proven, he’s an adult male, evident by the swollen nuptial pads or “thumbs”. He seems healthy, his body condition is great with a plump red tummy that shows he’s been hunting and sleek skin that shows no sign of fungi. A perfect frog–if you ignore the scowl, he’s obviously mad at losing our game of cat and mouse. I fill my camera with pictures and scribble notes before releasing him back to the stream. I watch his rhythmic movements, extending his legs outwards before quickly tucking them back in to jet him forward, his center of mass rocking laterally. I spend an hour seated atop a mossy stone listening for croaks but no more ring, the lack of frogs doesn’t surprise me, I’ve spent years in neighboring creeks watching the number of frogs drop every year.
I work on sketching maps of the creek to pass the time. It takes some moments, but I can trace the path taken in my head, noting landmarks such as protruding boulders or rock walls alongside the creek. The next hour is spent immersing myself in the map, occasionally indulging in moments of thought and rifling through memories I thought long forgotten. My time by the running water reminds me of my father and the men in my family. I think of their journey across the Chihuahuan desert, marching alongside the Rio Grande while their paces trace the arteries of the river. Perhaps like me, their lonesome along the water’s edge found solace in the rumbling songs of frogs and toads who emerge from their burrows. I’ve asked my father and uncles of their time in the desert only to learn that it is not spoken of. I continue scribbling away, I’ve drawn and sketched Bay Area creeks as a part of contract jobs now for some time now. The maps are useful for future biologists who will the traverse these area in the future. Including the notable landmarks of the creek and other parts makes it so that future people may easily tell where they are. I take pride in my maps, hoping they guide others well.
Pushing upstream to complete the last leg of today's trek, the dense live oak forests of the Diablo Shadows continue to thin, now transitioning to shrubby scrubland. The creek is fed from a set of springs high in the mountains of Diablo, the water only quickens as I tread closer to the summit. The stream is no longer a set of scattered pools but now a steadfast current, pressing against my thighs. The path I take goes through the center of the creek and against the flow, by doing this I ensure that any small amphibian or fish that may get caught in the stream is pushed towards my eyesight and easily picked up by my net. Every meter forward saps me of a little energy, I make sure to drive my heel deep into the rocky bed with each step, stopping me from sliding back with the stream. In the scattering forest, I can make out a set of figures ahead. Hurrying my pace, I push towards them, expecting it to be the vegetation crew that I’ve been hired to give an environmentally briefing and supervise around noon.
Ignacio is sporting a bright orange vest and black cargo pants that are barely visible under his chainsaw trousers. At a glance I think I met my grandfather in his youth. Skin the color of tilled soil and a black goatee that remind me of the brooms we made as kids, coarse bunches of dried grass and alfalfa. Beside him are three men, similarly dressed and talking amongst themselves in Spanish.
I call out and ask if they’re waiting on a Biologist: “Buenos dias muchachos, están buscando un Biologo?” Having got their attention, the crew stares back at me with a look of confusion. Ignacio steps forward, grinning, replies for them all “Oh, speak Spanish?”, “Si, como no”, I chime back. They are a group of undocumented Mexican men; I speak in Spanish for the rest of the day. We spend the next several minutes talking and sharing about ourselves, and they’re surprised to work with a biologist that speaks their tongue. While meeting the other men, I learn that some are from pueblos not far from my own; others are traveling from as far as Yucatan. A logging company arranged their work visas and flights out of Mexico three months ago and they’ve spent the last season living out of a motel, working as lumberjacks in California. They’re eager to start the day, hoping to clear an acre of overgrown vegetation by sunset. The California gas company PG&E owns several thousands of acres of land in the state. As part of their responsibilities, the company is expected to maintain the growth of vegetation to reduce the risk of wildfire. To achieve PG&E’s fire control mission, they contract several companies across the state that specialize in vegetation management and assign them different areas to remove overgrown landscape. Occasionally, those work areas are places where endangered animals are known to inhabit; in those cases, a biologist like myself is contracted to supervise and educate the crew about the work risks.
Gathering my thoughts, I prepare for the spiel.
Good afternoon men, I’m happy to be out here with you all, let's get this done quickly and right! The sooner we finish up here, the sooner you get out of the sun. You are going to be working in an environmentally sensitive area, the corridors are being used by our friend the Alameda Whipsnake. They have shiny black skin with a bright yellow belly, you might think it's a cable if you only get a glance. If you’re not sure what they look like, think of a snake, if you’re still not sure what it looks like then we got a bigger problem. They grow to be several feet long but are thin. If you press your pointer and middle finger together, that's about as thick as they get. Don’t worry, they are not venomous, I'm here to protect the snake from you. I don’t expect you’ll see much of them by the oak trees, but please watch your step when moving through the scrubland because they like to hunt there. If you see any snakes while working today, immediately tell me and stop work until I say you can continue.
It's a canned talk, given dozens of times to different crews but today’s the first time I'm giving it in Spanish. The men nod their heads in understanding, assuring me they’ll follow the guidelines. We spend several hours of the afternoon hiking through miles of foothills and chaparral, occasionally dropping mighty trees marked for removal and other times mowing dense thickets of dried vegetation, all the while exchanging words with one another. Arriving at a tree, Ignacio asks me, “You ever grill with this? Grab up here.” The chainsaw’s low grumble rose to a roar as he kissed the belly of the blade against a Manzanita. Sweet bark filling my nose, I watch its ruby skin become a mangle of pink innards. “Try grilling meat with it, come back for the branches later”, he says while tossing the branches under a buckeye. I ask him what it’ll taste like, but he insists that I must try it. I give in, accepting that I’ll have to come back for the branches at another time. If it was any other plant, I’d consider trimming some branches closer to my car. But this specific tree is a Pallid Manzanita, endangered in the state of California and cutting it is punishable by serious fines or imprisonment. The individual that Ignacio cut is marked for removal because it’s growing close to a power line, if left alone it might spark a fire.
In the late afternoon, the crew and I eat lunch in the shade of a towering oak. Running back to their truck, one of the men brings over a grill, another fetches a propane tank with peeling white stickers on the side. Ignacio clears the ground under the tree of leaves and grass, driving his heels against the soil and kicking up fresh clouds of dust. With a level ground, they fire up the grill to heat a generous pot of eggs and pepper. Beside the pot they simmer a saucepan of chopped pork, doused in a red chili sauce. When it got to temperature, the smell was irresistible. I have a few handfuls of granolas left in my bag, but it doesn’t compare to the meal they are cooking. Ignacio urges me to join their feast, I eagerly accept. In the oak’s shadow, we share stories. They ask about my Pueblo, and I tell them of Cuquio, seated in the mountains of Jalisco nestled against the Rio Verde. Our beautiful river town with a robust history of farming, life at home moves slowly, days are guided by daylight instead of a ticking clock. I gladly respond to their questioning, explaining how I was born in the United States but spent large parts of my youth learning to ride horses and care to our farm. Despite the love we have for our pueblo, swaths of my family have moved to San Francisco for decades, with the hope to secure a better quality of life for the next generation. I learn of Telchac, a coastal town on the Yucatan Peninsula, with homes crafted of clay and sascab stone, their markets stocked with fish.
Despite the tough exterior I see the men get visibly emotional while they speak of what’s close to them. I closely watch each of them while they share, scratching their inner palms or rubbing hands against the outside of their jeans, in a subtle act of self-soothing. While only here for a temporary time they’ve already began to imagine a life in the city, “One day I’ll take my daughter to the hospital by our motel”, one tells me. We share our truths in the audience of the mighty oak, knowing we likely won’t speak again.
After our meal, we follow our path of flattened grass to where we met earlier today. The crew has space in the bed of their pick-up, they offer to drive me back to my truck. I happily accept, my feet ache at the thought of another three-mile trek. From the back of the pick-up, I set my eyes on the rugged terrain closest to me and the gentle foothills by the bay. I almost fall asleep despite the bumpy drive. Ignacio and the crew drive right up to the back of my truck. With our work complete, we exchange goodbyes and part ways. Before getting back in his truck, Ignacio reminds me to grab the Manzanita branches tomorrow. I work with laborer’s often though our interactions are normally not so vulnerable. I’ve spent the last twenty something years asking my dad for his truths only to be met with curt replies that quickly end or redirect the conversation. In our culture men are instilled with the belief that our moments of weakness must be kept to ourselves, and to invite others into those moments is to fail as a man. I’d like to think that I’ve broken the cycle. Among the men I found myself sharing memories and thoughts buried so deep in myself that I’d forgotten they were part of me. And yet I realize that I only shared with the confidence that my words will leave the country forever or wither like fallen leaves, laid to rest at the oak's knotted base.
Bubbling water from the creek and songs of crickets immediately fills the silence left when their truck turns onto the road. I watch the last clouds of dust settle back onto the gravel path. I strip off the waders, unbuckling the clips at my shoulders and move onto my garments beneath. I fold and leave my damp clothes on the roof of my truck, leaving it to dry while I wash my tired body in a reach of the creek full of chattering water. I race against the sunset while rinsing, hastily dropping cups of water onto my head. When I finish, I head back to my truck to prepare for the night. I drop the back seats and cushion the back with blankets and a pillow. There are some motels not far from me, but I find more comfortable refuge in the rhythm of my thoughts when I’m closer to the outside, reminding myself of my grandmother once more before bed.
At night I dream of my uncle, my father, and the men of my family. I dream of time on the farm and the valley of the frogs. I dream of crossing rivers and trails. A guest of this world, I’m swept away in my exhaustion and lose myself completely in an existence crafted by my thoughts, memories, and stories of loved ones. I dream of their movement north only now, I am them.
Standing at the bank, I measure the length of the Rio Grande with a faltering breath and weak knees. Whatever name has been given to this river—Rio Grande, Rio Bravo, Rio del Norte—it doesn't matter now. The Rio Grande is Grande. My eyes scan the width, longer than a soccer field, and the choppy currents texture the surface. Still, in my dream the water’s edge is a welcome relief from the scorching Chihuahuan earth.
I quickly undress, throwing my torn jeans and tattered shirt onto the branches of a thorny Huisache. The touch of the water is heavenly, a familiar feel that instantly hugs my skin and licks the grains of sand hidden in the folds of my body. El Rio is busy quickly forming a copper cloud the moment my feet break the surface. After seeing days of desert sands, I forget the comfort of rivers and the miles-wide blankets of Milpa. Deep inside me is the urge to cross this monster. My body feels as if I’ve run a marathon but the irresistible urge to cross is there, I give a look at my battered hands, the torn clothes, and an empty canteen. I’m not prepared by any measure, for a river of this size I’d need a small boat. I spend the next while gathering my strength, gifting my body the rest it begs for.
In the wash of the Rio there's piles of driftwood. With no better alternative I grab a set of logs and drag them to the water’s edge, noting their shape and how easily they can be held. I settle on what seems to be an old manzanita, weathered by the desert sands and furious river. The characteristic Y shape of the log gives me space to rest my arms and body while I kick.
With a feat of strength, I kick off a rock and push myself into the powerful stream of the Rio. Instantly I’m flung downstream, pounds of water beat against my ribcage and wallop my eyes. A rush of foam jets up my nose, the taste of iron fills my throat and lungs. I keep my lips tight through it all, knowing that if I open it then it’ll only be worse, I want to scream so badly but I have no mouth. All the while, I keep my hands tight and body pressed against the manzanita. With my eyes full of sediment, I have no semblance of how far the Rio Grande has taken me. In my foolishness I thought I could kick across. Amongst the chaos I realize I’ll have to go where the river takes me. The river tosses me for an eternity, filling my ears and pulling on my hair until dragging me onto a gravel bed. I wretch water and my body shivers for several minutes. I feel fresh blood on my back, drawn by coarse sands that feverishly massaged my skin. I realize my hands are still gripping the shoulders of the manzanita, freeing them, small cuts appear on my palms.
Looking up, only now do I notice that the Rio Grande has taken me to the other side, granting my desperate wish. With cut hands and bloody back, I press my belly against the gravel bed. I reach out to the manzanita one last time, pressing my tired body against it, every muscle in me aches to be part of the tree. Alone on the gravel bed, I hold my manzanita close and weep.