The search for grazing dairy cows landed me out in the Pixley countryside earlier this week. With a family history in the community, you would think that nothing would surprise me. The west side of Pixley, out in the alkaline flats, did surprise me a bit.
First, you should know that the whole west side of the southern San Joaquin Valley naturally has high alkaline soil. Take a bunch of salt and sprinkle it in your yard and you'll get some sense of what grows in high alkaline soil. (You know, don't really do that because you'll pretty much kill everything that's there.)
Driving through the alkaline flats is much like driving through a desert, without the beauty of the desert plants.
Thanks to soil supplements, this land has been turned into agricultural land, but much of it still has a very dreary feeling. That's not what surprised me.
What surprised me was the state-of-nature feeling I had while traveling checking out the dairies west of Pixley.
The roads in the Pixley countryside are not at the very top of the county list for maintenance. In fact, the roads right near the Vander Eyk dairy are dirt. It's hard to know where county roads end and private roads begin.
Road Rules
And perhaps the lack of road maintenance is a signal of some sort of unspoken agreement with the county that government rules don't apply out there. I expect that if you are not driving agricultural equipment or transporting agricultural goods, you might not count out there.
I was run off the road by a milk tanker while I was out there.
Perhaps it knew I was being a lookie-loo.
And yet it was driving so fast that it would have been difficult for them to notice me. Luckily I have quick driving reflexes and can handle a rugged road shoulder even in a 1995 Honda Accord.
I took a picture of a milk truck passing me. Just to be clear, this picture is not while I was getting run off the road. I was busy at that moment.
We also squeezed by a harvester (tractor) that took the entire road. If you are not from ag country, you might think I am exaggerating (which I am a bit prone to do anyway). But it really did take up two full lanes on a two lane road. The driver was much more polite than the tanker - he pulled into the shoulder as far as he could and then only took his own lane.
"All Roads Lead to the Same Place"
When I first started to drive as a teenager and my dad would give me explicit directions somewhere and coach me not to get lost, I would say "All roads lead to the same place, Dad, don't worry about it."
And what I meant was that the layout of roads in the valley follows a very simple north-south east-west pattern. In Tulare County the country roads running east-west follow a simple numbering system. You cannot get lost if you have any sense of direction at all.
I had driven by the dairy before but wanted to approach it from a different direction so that I could see a new side of it.
How naïve I am.
I headed out on Avenue 80, turned, turned, saw nothing, and found myself on the Central Valley Highway seven miles from Corcoran, home of the high-security Corcoran Prison and Charles Manson.
I wondered if one could just go in and visit Charles Manson. I haven't tried it myself.
I drove a bit and then turned back toward Pixley when I found a paved road.
Major Detours
As I headed east back toward Pixley I thought "I hope this doesn't turn out like that time Shayne and I hiked when she was eight months pregnant."
In the fall after high school graduation, a friend was staying with us and on the verge of having a baby. We decided to walk to Pine Flat, about two miles away uphill.
About one-third of the way there, Shayne said, "We used to take a short cut through there."
We exchanged looks and headed toward the short cut.
About twenty minutes later we discovered that a homestead was located directly on the short cut and there was no way to continue. We backtracked, climbed up a bank covered in vinca (an ivy-like plant), and found the main road again.
"How far do you think we are?"
We speculated.
Then as we walked around a curve we saw the old hotel and realized we were about 200 yards from where we started the "short cut" about 45 minutes prior.
I felt pretty devastated and I wasn't even eight months pregnant and having contractions. (Yes, I got a bit scolded for not taking better care of Shayne.)
That day in the alkaline flats west of Pixley, I finally hit Highway 99 and my heart sunk as I saw that Tipton was three miles north. It took us about forty five minutes and we were only about five miles from where we took the detour.
Preschool Looks Good
Frederick didn't want to go to preschool that day and was up for a detour. For a five-year-old he really does humor me and not complain about long trips through the alkaline flats.
About the time we hit Central Valley Highway, Frederick said, 'I want to be at preschool right now."
I laughed. "Me too, honey."
Dairy Report
We saw a whole lot of cows that morning - probably tens of thousands. We even passed a very large calf ranch filled with Holstein calves. But we saw no organic cows for all of our trouble.
We smelled a cow or two as well.
"Something stinks!" Frederick complained.
He thought it was truck exhaust.
County records issues have slowed my efforts. Even the cows seem to be hiding from me these days.
