California Grass

We met at the Sacramento Airport on an October Sunday morn. There were 3 of us. Rick, my younger brother had the rental car waiting and drove. David, the older brother was trip master. Our goal was to visit the spot where the last California Grizzly bear was killed. This occurred in Fresno County, at Horse Camp Meadows, in Sequoia National Park in 1922. There is a Tulare County claim to this infamy killing in 1922 but it lacks a hide of truth.

Heading south to Sequoia National Park, we avoided the  three freeways which connect South California to North, US 99, Interstate 5 and US 101. The latter is often also know locally as El Camino Real or the Kings Highway. It traces the route of the Spanish Franciscan friar, Junípero Serra, as he founded California’s 21 missions.

Instead, we drove south on State Highway 41 which hugs the southern Sierra Nevada foothills. It allowed frequent stops and accommodated my brothers reluctance to drive over 50 miles an hour.

Our first stop was at an area of gently rolling hills with a plateau covered by grass about 40 miles south of Sacramento. David, a naturalist scientist, saw what his younger siblings couldn’t and ordered Rick to stop and park along the highway fence. After our traversing the barbwire, standing in knee high golden grass, he said,

“There is very little native grassland left in California. Where we’re standing includes a few strands of native grass amongst a carpet of invasive grass."

As, a scientist and artist he saw what Rick and I could not. I stared down and then scanned about in appreciative awe as expected when viewing a rarity but remained blind of what to see. Finally I noted a pink flower and picked it before thinking,

“Gee maybe I just picked the last native one!”

I was relieved to see a few more in the distance while admiring my trophy. David informed me, I’d bagged an invading weed not a native grass. He pointed down to some brown stalks of grass that looked little different from the rest of the carpet and explained that it was the native species.

As Rick and I looked in awe, he explained there remained little native grass because the Spanish padres, in addition to establishing their missions, also brought sturdier and more aggressive grasses from Spain to feed their imported cattle. With introduced cattle and grasses the green and golden hills of California were terraced with bovine import paths visible from highways and airplanes, forever changing the way California looked, something that repeated invasions of California has caused.

He then explained the cattle and grizzle bear booms. Cattle, an easy prey for California’s largest carnivore, generated ready meals on the hoof for the formerly sparse grizzle population.

As David droned on, my mind wandered to far away Spain from which California's back then invaders first settled and changed California.

Back in Spain, I imagined Spanish priests telling village peons for their confessional penance to gather grass for a far away place called California. I saw the men cutting the stalks and bringing in the grass in bundles to their huts, the women winnowing the grass seeds, sewing the seed up tight in sacks for transport, mule drawn carts gathering the sacks from village huts, and teamsters traveling over loaded down dusty roads to Seville.

I then imagined Spanish vaqueros on horses with silver spurs from Mexico’s mines herding stray cattle from the Spanish hills and out of arroyos to Seville.

At Seville's port, I imagined the cattle forced up gang planks, down into ship holds and tethered in pens; sacks of grass seed balanced on stevedore shoulders as they labored up gangplanks and plunked the sacks next to the lowing cattle.

I imagined the loaded ships leaving Seville with a favorable wind, low in the water with their bellowing bovine cargoes, to brave English raiders, hurricanes and pirates, the cattle and sacks of grass seed heaving to and fro with stormy Atlantic waves for weeks at sea.

I imagined the survivors arriving at Panama, the cattle wobbling down gang planks and black slaves unloading the sacks onto burro pack trains for the journey through a disease infested jungle across the Isthmus.

I saw men wild with fever fall and die along the path, the burros braying in protest while pulled forward overloaded with grass seed sacks, and bellowing cattle whipped forward by lariat in the tropical swamps. I saw cattle and sacks reloaded on ships again for the long voyage north on the blue Pacific to the little ports of San Diego, Monterey, and Yerba Buena.

Unloaded once more, I imagined the seed sacks sewn carefully by the women of Espana piled on ox carts with cows and a bull tied behind, distributed via the dusty El Camino Real to adobe missions. I saw the broad smiles of the Franciscan Fathers in those missions seeing God had answered their prayers and their subsequent letters of thanks to Madrid.

I imagined the padres gathering the Indians and explaining the Beneficent Christian God had given them imported animals and grasses for a new California. I saw Indians blankly stare at God’s beasts and sacks of seed, the women yearning for possession of the sack cloths. I saw their shepherding the beeves in the fields surrounding the missions and their struggling from the weight of sacks supported with straps across their forehead as they strew the seeds of Old World grass to change the golden hills of California as fulfillment of God’s will.

I imagined the grass invaders sprouting in the winter rain to replace the native grasses just as California’s intruders continue to do.

I imagined herds of fat cattle grazing on the new grasses and terracing the hills of California with their hoofs. I saw grizzle bears laying on their backs and waving their paws in the new grass to attract the curiosity of the unsuspecting bovines and their leaping up to feast on the easy prey. I saw subsequent Spanish fiesta entertainment of the changed California where rancheros pitted grizzle bears against el toro to the cheers of ole'.

Breaking free from my trance, I spoke up and said,

“God can’t make an omelet without breaking egg”.

Rick and David looked at me strangely and did not reply.

After due admiration for the native grass and my pink weed, we clambered back in the car.

I thought it best to stay sitting in the rear where I ensconced myself for the remainder of the trip.

I didn’t think they could see what I saw.