Metal yelps a sharp, quick clang as it meets the rock below. Chunks of the obstruction fly up through a newborn cloud of dust. A spark, born of the meeting of metal to stone glows through the dust before quickly disappearing; its ephemeral heat lasting less than a second. The rusted iron digging bar comes up again, raised by my shoulders that Papa never fails to squeeze with his catcher's mitt hands when I see him. He handed me the keys to the truck on my own this morning, his faded cowboy hat keeping off the morning sun, sending me off with that strong, comforting squeeze – my shoulders are always stronger if I’ve been on the ranch, according to him. The bar comes down again, gravity and practice sending it straight back to the spot it hit a few seconds before. A deep thud pulses up and through my feet, vibrating through my sweat stained leather gloves. Bullseye.
The barrier to my progress had split; a crisp continuous crack separating two halves of the boulder that had just been greeted by the sun for the first time since its silica rich sand had flaked off the Sierran granite some millions of years ago. I kneel, a drop of sweat falling from my nose and meeting the open face of the rock. As it collides with the surface, splashing outward in a dime sized corona, a mosaic of color emerges, the smokey gray morphing to a deep oceanic blue. I’d seen this same bead of sweat roll off the nose of Papa hundreds of times before, the cadence of its drip a sort of pocket watch for the progress of the day. Reaching for the fractured stone, my cheek presses into the copper hued dust. Waves of scents penetrate my nostrils. The particles of iron rich clay taste of metallic blood in my nose. The cloud from below brings charred rock to the forefront of the palate – a sort of volcanic gunpowder-esque scent that I’d imagine this whole valley was steeped in while the Sierras were birthed. The lobed rock below fills my palm and my fingers stretch wide to grip it with all their might. If I do this enough, maybe my shoulders will fill Papa’s hands the same. My ear and cheek press deeper into the dust, I can feel the powdered soil turn to a salty mud.
The muffling of sound reminds me that today, I am here alone. How did Papa feel the first time he was sent to build a fence by himself? The rock finally loosens free. It must’ve felt like I did this morning when Papa sent me on my own with the tool basket and the truck. Emerging through the mouth of the posthole, like a three point swish in reverse, the boulder sends a waterfall of small rocks and dirt clods back to the bottom. The hushed sound of avalanching soil the closest my ears could get to a waterfall on a 102 degree July day in sunbaked Calaveras.
Glancing upward, an ancient wooden figure catches my eye. Leaning out from the hundred year old, drunkenly wandering fenceline stands a sunbleached and lichen covered fencepost shaped storybook. The four foot tall tapered and irregular post calls out my name to join it for a conversation. Pushing up off the unearthed soil from my own project, I stand, wiping the sweat soaked dust from my cheek in an exfoliating smear. Arriving a few steps later for my meeting with this wooden oracle, I am struck by the stories that seem to be trapped behind the mosaic of lichen, wanting to be heard. This fencepost is old. A redtail hawk, perched in the meandering branch of a blue oak tree, looks down the half mile fence line that divides my family’s ranch from our neighbor’s, seeming to look me directly in the eyes as I stand next to the crooked wooden post supporting this divide on the ridge. The barbed wire and posts have been pressed back and forth over the years by the hungry muzzles of black angus cattle who stretch their pink tongues beneath the wires in search of the grass always greener. Their hairy faces pressed to the wires like toddlers cheeks to aquarium glass, the powerful bodies of these cattle push and pull the fence lines. They turn what was once a straight and level fence line into a wobbled and stumbling border over the decades, as the wooden posts slowly need to be replaced with metal, and the barbed wire is snapped on occasion just to make sure that we stay busy. The redtail hawk spreads its wings and takes flight from the oak tree, headed off on a tour of our county, and I turn my attention back to the fencepost.
The once rufous and freshly split redwood log no longer looks like a lumber store aisle. Its smooth sides are deeply furrowed like crop rows in a field, where the wider bands of the redwood’s summer growth have weathered out faster than its dense, winter growth ring neighbors. Ribbed like an accordion, these ridges and valleys of the log reflect the rolling grassy foothills of the central Sierra, a place that my family has now called home for six generations. Working this land as cattle ranchers and gold miners for so much time, my family has deeply influenced this landscape and built up books worth of fireside stories. When squeezed, the ancient post does not release a harmonic chord like its looks suggest – the only changes after a century of weathering are cosmetic, its core still as strong as the day my ancestors placed it in the ground.
Images of this post’s life and its creation flash through my mind, whirring like the projector shutter on a black and white stop action film. Staring at the mottled quilt of lichen that envelops the north facing side of the post, I can envision its source – a massive redwood tree – emerging from the burnt orange, steel gray, rusted red and faded green symbioses of algae and fungi. Rising well over 200 feet tall and nestled in a grove of its siblings, this ancient tree was part of a species that has covered many of the mountain sides in the upper foothills of the Central and Southern Sierra since the Mesozoic. I reach out to touch the ribbed record book of growth rings, snapping the vision of the towering redwood from my hazy, heat tainted mind. I press my thumb firmly into the grooves of the post, feeling the blood leave the capillaries and my sweaty fingertip dry as the dehydrated pores quickly absorb any moisture into their sunbaked sponge. Removing my thumb, I find twelve pale and red zebra stripes etched into my ngerprint. Twelve years, in the span of a thumb pad. The things this tree must have seen. Since emerging from its cone on the charred forest floor as a mere sapling some 1,000 years ago, this ancient redwood has witnessed California go through immense change. For the majority of its life, this tree was cared for by the tribes of the Northern Sierra Miwok. This tree witnessed the Miwok thrive in this region, living in tribes of a few dozen to a few hundred people, continuing to develop a deep understanding and relationship with the land that had enabled them to flourish in this landscape for hundreds of generations before this particular tree was even a seed. Throughout this tree’s life, its two foot thick bark protected it from regular cultural burns from its Miwok kin, clearing its understory, improving deer hunting, and releasing the next generation of redwood seeds onto a bed of fresh, mineral rich soil. Beginning in the middle of the 18th century however, the balanced and thriving communities and ecosystems in the Foothills of the Sierras began to be disrupted by genocide, disease, and exploitation. I think about the fact that during a short stretch of time from the late 18th to early 20th century, just a small fraction of this redwood tree’s life, it witnessed California and its Native Peoples go through unimaginable change. Forced through the Spanish Mission System, the Gold Rush, and the colonialism and settlement of the new State of California, over 95% of the Miwok people that call Central California home were killed, and nearly 40% of the redwoods surrounding this tree were logged, leaving behind small, shattered communities of Native Peoples, and just a few groves of Sierran Redwoods. My mind is brought to think about the way that my family has discussed this history. Growing up, I was taught about Native American history broadly and the tragedies that occurred in this state. As a young boy, I was told about the historical presence of Miwok peoples on this land as my grandparents walked us down to the moss covered grinding rocks on the ranch that sit by the babbling creek running between oak and buckeye covered hills. They explained some of their ways of life, and a few very meaningful conversations they have had with current Tribal Elders, but never really elaborated or explored why they were no longer in this particular place. As I grew older and learned about California history, about the earlier facts and statistics that had just come to mind, I never learned about where my family specfically fit within this relationship. Where our ancestors fit within this history, that quite honestly, is difficult to think about being a part of. But by not discussing it, how are we shaping history? And looking back, I guess I have not asked yet.
Thoughts shift back towards the redwood and the way that this tree, one of the few still standing in its grove, witnessed my family’s life change from its perch in the hills above the Mokelumne River. This tree saw my Great, Great, Great grandparents who, fleeing the Great Famine and political and religious strife plaguing Ireland in 1851, ended up casting cannons in a foundry for the impending Civil War and working in textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts before heading west to California in 1861 and settling in the golden foothills of Calaveras. It saw my ancestors, Terrence and Mary McSorely, begin my family’s history of ranching here, as they raised goats and cattle in Chile Gulch, a lush valley outside the mining town of Mokelumne Hill. It was here that they began their life before eventually obtaining land grants from the U.S. Government to begin mining for gold. Hillsides were erased by massive fire hoses and sent through sluice boxes in search of gold on their long journey to depositing their sediments in the San Francisco Bay. Looking out at the cliff face that scars an otherwise golden hillside on our ranch with my young eyes and with the benefit of hindsight, I wonder, like our history with the Miwok, if this mining was the best decision for the land in the long run. I wonder how the Bay would fair today if it were not clogged by hillsides from the foothills, sent down by families like mine. While I have discussed the stories of my ancestors of mineshafts and world record crystals, there are still things unasked. I have not asked my grandparents how our ancestors felt during these times. Did they know the damage? What did they think was right? How did they really feel? Again, these questions threaten to paint a slightly darker side of a history painted bright, but I still wonder why I am yet to ask. The fencepost morphs back into its tree into my mind, its field of vision expanding to the valley below. Viewing from a distance, the redwood tree watched its fate develop. Rippling below it, in the fertile Central Valley, fields of purple needlegrass, golden poppy, wildrye, lupine, and purple owl clover glisten like the hair of a goddess in the wind. Catching rays of sunlight like shimmers on the surface of a turbid lake, the grasses, forbes, and wildflowers connected freshwater marshes, vernal pools, and riparian woodlands. Enormous, golden, California Grizzly bears lumber amongst herds of tule elk and pronghorn antelope as a San Joaquin kit fox pounces on a Fresno kangaroo rat. The distinct call of a yellow-billed magpie pierces the air, and the swooping wings of millions of migratory waterfowl create a deafening hush as they pass overhead. The grasslands begin to shift, purple needlegrass replaced by European wild oats and ryegrass, tule elk and pronghorn displaced by free range cattle. The great California Grizzly, gone forever. Diverse and thriving grasslands and plains quickly turned into cattle rangelands and wheat fields as the network of rivers feeding the bay turned to chocolate covered streams as they carried vast quantities of mining sludge from the Mother Lode. By the 1870’s, wheat farmers and orchardists were fighting with cattle ranchers and range managers. Competing for the production potential of 80 million years of nutrient rich sediments that washed off of the Sierras and Coastal range and reach depths of over a mile, coupled with optimal climatic conditions, a blame battle for the damage of cattle to crops entered early courtrooms in the Central Valley. As ink hit paper and words spelled out, fence lines were laid and ranges were carved up. Legislation bounced from Trespass Acts to No Fence Laws, which, ironically in the eyes of the redwood, did just the opposite. Pushing liability of crop damage to ranchers, rather than the farmer, the No Fence Law, coupled with the timely invention of barbed wire the following year, kicked off the beginning of the fence carved landscape of California today. If this bill were written from the perspective of a rancher, it may be more accurately titled: the Fence it All Law. Requiring ranchers to fence in their free range cattle, the Valley was changed forever, and the majestic redwood began to watch its neighbors meet the teeth of steel and hold up miles of shiny, new, barbed wire. Conveniently for this tree, and my now settled family, the foothill and mountain counties were exempted from the no fence law, so it was able to live for a few more decades before distinguishing property with fences became something that was desired by settlers, not required by law.
Early in the morning, as dew pooled on the tips of the scaled needles, sparkling in the first light like mirrors on a disco ball, the cold steel teeth of a two man pull saw tore their first slash through its bark. Three grueling days passed by as the saw drew back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, each pass taking out another handful of pink, damp, sweet scented sawdust. As it fell, taking one last look out across the valley from its 4,000 foot elevation perch, it saw its relatives out there. Still standing strong but just four feet tall, held strong by tamped soil and staying connected not with roots, but with wire, the tree wondered if it would join them. With a thunderous crash, this tree became a fencepost. Or rather, an enormous quantity of posts, planks, tool handles and water tanks that could be created from its 10,000 cubic feet of wood. It joined the ranks of many other trees, turned from an ancient and crucial component of an ecosystem, to a symbol of ownership, division, and control that is now such a common sight, but for millenia did not exist. On an early Saturday morning, the sun crested the Sierras and cast a golden light onto the dried out summertime grass, awakening a chorus of songbirds. My young grandfather, Papa, joined his father for a day of fence building. With plans to allow cattle into a new field, and not wanting to bother the neighbors or lose a calf, it was time for this new fence to take form. Alongside his dad he learned lessons that he would reteach to me half a century later. Breaking through the dense hardpan and cobble that characterize these hills with his own iron digging bar, feeling the calluses on his hands harden like the clay, they built these fences that span before my eyes as I lean an arm against the weathered wood post. I look down the line of barbed wire and posts cascading down the hillside, think about the stories that I have been told of his childhood, and know that this was Papa’s classroom too.
Snapping back into reality, I focus on my task, my daydream of family history providing a much needed breather. I turn my back on the storyteller, walking back to my own fence post hole, glancing up to a cloudless baby blue sky to check the time. The radiant white globe beating down on my back has not even reached its apex yet – it must be about eleven o’clock. The glare is broken as a shadow crosses the face of the sun, the source’s tail illuminated crimson for a brief moment. Elegantly drifting through the air, riding thermals like a log on a stream, a bird of prey, signified by the pointed shape of its wings and smooth style of flight, peers down at me, appearing to judge the cleanliness of my worksite. Looping around in a circle, its tail flashes across the sun again, glowing like the oranges closest to the horizon just before it dips below at sunset – it's a redtail hawk, I think, maybe the same one that left its faraway perch earlier this morning. The hawk joins me for a bit, my first animate companion of the day – although that fencepost itself seemed to have a heartbeat. Over the course of the day, the hawk circles through the sky, making its way from the Tuolumne County border all the way to the Amador County line, traversing the entirety of the Calaveras foothills. Gliding effortlessly through the drafts of warm air which radiate from the flowing hills below, it passes over dammed rivers, ponded creeks, gnarled vineyards and vast stretches of open rangeland. Following the winding asphalt of Highway 49, the majestic feathered creature observes the sparse towns spaced along this gold rush route. Angels Camp, where Mark Twain wrote about the Jumping Frog, and where I myself have jumped a few in our county fair. San Andreas, where students ride an hour and a half by bus from upcountry to get to highschool, and my great uncle’s shot put record still stands etched on the faded red and gold record board. Chili Gulch, where a California Historic site marker sits in a pull off from the highway and my family’s ranch house still stands, surrounded by black angus and abandoned mineshafts. Moke Hill, where the “Welcome to Historic Mokelumne Hill” sign and supposedly haunted Hotel Leger still lure in the occasional passerby. Between these few towns, characterized by their lack of stoplights and lonely grocery stores, the Hawk’s eyes scan the open hillsides, trying to spot its next meal. Between the blue oaks, occasional gray pine and scattered groups of cattle, the hawk stares with an unmatched focus. Its eyes weave the lattice of cow trails, etched into the hillsides over the last ten decades. These trails weave their way along slopes, through valleys and over ridges, following a purposeful, yet meandering pattern like the branches of an ancient oak. Suddenly the trail becomes uniform, straightened out into a sharp, crisp line. Just a step away from it runs another track exactly parallel, reminiscent of a train that travels on similarly oriented iron tracks, their uniformity a striking abnormality in these organically patterned hills. Unknown to the hawk, these traces of cattle are separated by a fence, which carves this hillside into parcels. Emerging from the grass below, a small, tan creature catches the hawk’s eye as it crosses from the cover of the grass through the compacted red dirt of the linear cattle trail. Reaching lightning quick speeds and diving like a bullet through the air, the hawk instinctually makes a move for the unsuspecting field mouse below. As it begins to open its wings and extend its talons, the hawk takes an immediate and sharp detour from its course. Between it and the mouse, dividing the two parallel trails, are six strings of rusted barbed wire, held up by posts. With a new understanding of the out of place parallel tracks, and a hunger knotted stomach, the hawk moves on. Gusts of wind are thrust beneath the frustrated hawk as it returns to its throne in the sky with a series of powerful strokes of its wings. Angered by the man-made obstruction that ruined its lunch, it decides to soar higher than usual, hoping that the elevation will provide comfort amongst the bright midday sun. Rising higher and higher, the landscape expands beneath it – golden hills linked together by canyons of oak, dried up creek beds, and blankets of chamise. Focusing back to the cattle trail where the lucky mouse escaped its fate, the fluid and twisting landscape is cut again by the sharpness of these parallel cattle roads. From its new viewpoint high above the surface of this heat baked earth, the hawk notices that the landscape is not just carved by creek beds. Linking together ridgelines and separated patches of isolated oaks lay more of those parallel cattle trails, where cattle have been funneled by miles of tarnished wire, transforming the landscape of these foothills.
I wonder if the creators of these fences knew the ways they would shift our landscape. The way it would ruin the meal of this hawk, and take the life of a redwood to hold itself strong. The way the soil would compress and erode away at the cattle trails, the soil adjusting to the shallow touch of invasive grass roots, missing the deep comforting grasp of native grasses it had known for so long. The way they would prevent a hike through some of the most beautiful country I have seen.
I return to my hole, ready to install the new post that I carried out this morning to support the old, leaning fence. As I pack in the soil around its base, tamping down clay and rock to hold it plum for generations, I run back through the thoughts of the day. These fences are in a way, a source of pride. Knowing that my family, who has now tended to this land for six generations, helped build these, it feels good to repair them, improve them, and get to know them. The curves of the lines, bends in the wire and cracks in the posts hold stories and memories that run deep through my blood. Digging through this soil, stretching frail barbed wire taught, wiping caked dust from my brow, I feel intimately connected with my family in an irreplicable way. In these hills, where talks of gold lured my great great great grandparents, each subsequent generation learned to care for the land and developed a deep connection that has been passed down to me. I think of the days these hillsides were not etched with physical borders and fence lines denoting private properties. When, instead of dividing Calaveras from Amador county, the banks of the Mokelumne River were central gathering places – places where communities of Miwok peoples thrived. The landscape is now changed; trees now posts, forests now grasslands, grizzlies now cattle, as ranches and crop fields and orchards export food to feed the world. As I hammer the last fence staple into the unweathered groves of the freshly set post and the wire sits taut like barbed strings of a freshly tuned guitar, I think through the stories the fence post told and the scenes that the Red-tailed hawk, now long gone, observed. Thinking of family, ever changing landscapes, current needs and historical wrongs, I leave this fence for the day wondering what a fence post would look like in a post fence world.