Ode to a Piece of Dirt...

Winter has come to our valley. Not THE valley, Salt Lake City, but the other valley. Our valley. The small patch of ground ringed by hills and mountains southwest of the city. Out in the back of the West Desert. I first came upon our valley last year as Spring was giving way to Summer. Randomly driving down dirt roads and over hills, I crested one hill to see a small valley spread out before us. A perfect basin, wearing a humble covering of sagebrush and cheatgrass. Rolling to a stop, Dakota the desert dog and I left the truck on the summit of the hill and made our way down the hillside to the valley floor. The dry Utah heat had sucked the moisture from the ground. The clean, sweet smell of dirt filled my nose, the tangy aroma of the sage blending into a Utah scent unmistakable for anywhere else. Dakota lifted a leg on a stunted and gnarled juniper, marking this valley as ours, daring the coyotes to trespass.

Dust rose from our steps as we walked over the rusted, empty shotgun shells previous hunters had left. This valley was far from being wilderness, signs of "civilized" man were everywhere. Decrepit hulks of refrigerators and sinks littered the hillside, all sporting bullet holes in their carcasses, no longer a threat to innocent hikers. Man with his disposable concepts had come and gone. Faint concentric patterns in the dirt of the valley floor told of a time when someone had cultivated this land. How long had it taken the harrow discs to break up the topsoil, leaving it exposed to the erosion of wind and rain? As the rich topsoil was borne away by the canyon winds, the useful grasses withered and died of starvation. Now the sagebrush was moving, slowly and patiently reclaiming the valley floor, happily intermingling with the rough cheat grass that scraped against my hands as we walked.

Appearing barren at first glance, the valley soon began showing signs of life. Watching the zones of transition, where animals frequent, I soon began to see signs of the inhabitants. Shallow tunneled runs in the tall grass showed me the paths of field mice. Dakota's nose led us to to a den, but the dried, barren nest he unearthed had been abandoned long ago. We followed a game trail into the sagebrush, following the edge of the field. Scat of jackrabbits showed up underneath the sagebrush.

One path led us to what looked like a minature buffalo wallow. A round section of the ground had been scratched up, exposing the fine sandy dirt underneath the rocks and lichen. It was a wallow, but one for jackrabbits. I could imagine the scene on moonlit nights, as the big jacks came to this spot to roll in the dust, soaking the clogging oils from their coats, scrubbing off the parasites, and perhaps reveling in the feel of the earth as Dakota does when I see him rolling on his back in the yard, a pit bull grin of delight plastered on his face.

It may sound as if I hold the jackrabbits in high esteem, when in reality they are merely oversized rodents. Well, I admit grudgingly these turbo kamikazes of the sagebrush have earned my respect. Our little valley holds a small, pressured population of these rabbits. Nearly every weekend a brace of young hunters beats the sagebrush, seeking the elusive jack. More often than not, the hunters go home empty handed.

I visit this valley nearly every day. In this way I've come to know the jacks that we jump off the nests. I learned the older jacks had acquired many tricks and could adapt their tactics. Many times I sat and watched as hunters walked within feet of a hunkered down jack. In that frail body, nostrils filled with the smell of the predator, I saw nerves of steel and a wild cunning that I could only respect and admire. One jack continues to frequent the grass field, eschewing the relative safety of the sagebrush and his ken. I stalked this jack numerous times, and watched in amazement as he literally disappeared into the valley floor when I thought I had him ready to flush. No burrows were ever found at the spot where he disappeared from. It was as if the ground swallowed him up, only to spit him back out somewhere far behind me.

One day, watching as a group of boys tried to stalk and kill this jack, I was able to see his trick, and admire his skill and cunning. The jack had marked the small rises that dot the valley floor in his memory. As the young hunters drove the rabbit forward, I saw his form sinking behind one of these rises. I watched as the jack flattened himself out full length on the ground. Looking for all the world like a minature soldier, the jack belly crawled in a wide arch around the hunters, using whatever cover he could find, ears held tight against his skull. His body flowed over the terrain like a drop of brown mecury, molding to the contours of the ground. Calmly, he waited until the hunters had passed. Sensing the timing was right, he pistoned up out of the grass and lit the afterburners that surely must have resided somewhere in his lean, gaunt body. The boys sent out a futile barrage of impotent bullets, but the jack was well out of range. I let my breath out in a whoosh, unaware I had been holding it as I watched this drama unfold. I hoped this rabbit would live long enough to send more of his offspring out in the world.

The summer and fall passed as we made our daily sojurn out to the valley. The dogs, once free of the truck, bound from the seat and dashed in circles, tongues hanging out the sides of their mouths, crazed grins speaking their joy at their freedom to run and wrestle, unhindered and unencumbered. Together, we sat and watched as the storms of Fall rolled down from the sides of the Ouquirrh Mountains to lash our valley with rain and thunder. We watched warily as snow began to show on the tips of the Wasatch range. The animals became scarcer. Most of the new crop of rabbits and mice had fallen prey to the hawks and coyotes that frequent the valley. Darwin made me a believer. Small Mule deer, pushed down from the mountains by the snow, started to appear in the dusk as we drove out of the valley, silent dun colored ghosts rising up out of the twilight.

This week, the first serious snow hit our lowlands, and a new phase begins. At last the valley is tricked into giving up the secrets of her nocturnal happenings. Slipping and sliding in the truck, we return to our valley, now cloaked in fresh snow. We run down the hillside from the parked truck, Dakota and I full of energy from a week spent indoors and needing to run and jump. We stop at a bright red patch of blood in the snow. Swept indentations in the snow and auburn-ticked patches of fur tell the story. Here a raptor took a rabbit. The cycle of predator and prey, symbiotic joining, continues. A high powered slug from a hunters rifle or silent death from the sky in the form of an owl, rabbits are the cannon fodder of the natural world. They literally live to die. Heading into the sagebrush, now heavy with the wet snow, we track the rabbits, seeing the traffic and realizing the numbers of jacks that still exist. Winter will be hard out here, but enough will survive to re-populate the valley in Spring and feed the hawks through the winter.

We come to a deep ravine that cleaves the floor of the valley in half. I have a superstitious fear of the ravine. It's bottom, packed solid with the skeletal yellow forms of tumbleweeds, triggers my imagination. I see a solid carpet of rattlesnakes, churning and writhing beneath the cover of the tumbleweeds. I imagine the fangs slamming into my flesh as I tumble into the ravine, a missed step leading to my slow, agonizing demise. Dakota breaks out of the brush ahead of me, in hot pursuit of a small cottontail rabbit, yanking me from my daydreams of horrible death. Hopelessly outmanuevered, he ambles back to me with a satisfied grin. He's well fed, the game for him is mostly in the chase.

I think about the snakes that I have actually seen in this valley. Never have seen a rattlesnake here in truth. First found were the little brown grass snakes, eluding me in the small fissures of the hard ground as I snuck up on them. No more than 6 inches in length, these snakes were numerous in the Summer but had gone by Fall.

I recall a very special day, only a month or two back as I made my second reptilian discovery. Walking the field, movement in the dirt stopped us. A baby gopher snake was making his way towards the ravine, sleek and shiny in his new brown and yellow scales. Picking him up with the muzzle of my rifle, I watched as his supple form wrapped itself around the steel. Dropping him into my open palm, I watched as the heat of my skin relaxed his body. His tongue moved about over my palm, retelling to the snake the substance of what it had found. The sensual feel of his smooth scales sliding across my hand made me smile. I felt lucky to have seen this reclusive, vulnerable animal. Placing him back on the ground, we watched as he slid off to a destination only he was sure of, guarding against passing enemies.

I thought of the other remarkable reptile I had seen here. Once again the creature was betrayed by it's movement. Against the dirt, I spotted a fearsome looking little lizard that immediately brought back memories of my childhood. Holding still at the base of some grass, camouflaged by his color, sat a horned lizard. Horny Toad, in the vernacular of my southern California youth so many years ago. Before I could reach down to snatch the little dinosaur for closer inspection, he scuttled off, leaving me suffused with the memories of another time, when a day could be whiled away chasing lizards and watching clouds float by. Such days are precious few in my now adult world.

Walking up to the power lines, where we turn north to go back to the truck, I see the draw where Dakota found the fox last summer. His nose gave the first alarm. I watched as he slid down the ravine, nosing through the brush. The muscles in his neck bunched and jumped as I watched him work something free of the brush. The orange bundle of fur hanging from his mouth took me a minute to identify, as he scrambled back up the ravine. The last thing I expected was a dead fox. We looked at the small corpse as it lay on the ground. The back was arched, the mouth open in an empty scream of what? The lips were drawn back, exposing small but sharp teeth. It was a female, in the prime of her life.

Poisoning? It was my first thought, but I'll never know. No bullet holes on her body. The teeth were not even worn yet with age. Just another mystery. The dead hawks I have found there are less of a mystery. Their bodies riddled with buckshot, empty shotgun shells litter the ground near where they lie. Choosing to ignore federal laws protecting the remains of raptors, I take the parts that I can use. A totem from my earliest memory, hawks have always bid well for me.

Sometimes anger, sometimes despair runs through me as I survey the meaningless slaughter. I think about the rabbit and a wave of guilt washes through me. Conflicting emotions that leave my head spinning threaten to rise up in my thoughts. Shoving the whole stinking mess back into my subconcious, I bury the remains, afraid to leave any inspiration to future poachers.

The last part of the walk is all uphill. I'm breathing hard as the exertion hits my body. The stick I'm throwing for Dakota sails end over end through the chill air, caught in a red glow by the setting sun. Cresting the hill, the cold wind whips my long hair against my face as I turn to look at the mountains that surround us in our basin. The tops of the Wasatch Mountains are burning red, as the sun sinks below the horizon. All around us, it appears the moutains are ablaze, the snow-encrusted peaks reflecting the final weak rays of the evening sun.

I give a silent thank to God for another day well spent, hopefully well lived. Dakota's heavy head comes to rest in my lap as we start the truck and head home. I look in my rear view mirror at the valley floor, wondering what will happen under the cover of the night, what I might miss. I'm coming to learn this piece of land and the lessons it holds. In some strange way, this little piece of land restores me much like a huge tract of wilderness. The lessons learned in this little island of sage and scrub grass are more urgent, more direct somehow. The stage is smaller, but the play no less gripping.

Pulling onto the highway, I point the truck home. I feel my body relax from the tensions of the day. An audible sigh of contentment comes from the sleeping pit bull in my lap, his eyes closed in restless slumber. I try not to think about the freeway that is planned through our valley, the orange survey tape that was hanging from a juniper as we left. The valley is no longer a chunk of land to me, but a part of my life. A teacher; a source of knowlege and rejuvenation for me. I am coming to know it's rhythms and inhabitants. It's hard to watch the destruction of something you've come to know intimately. My protest is futile, but I have to continue. Some things I guess I do for their own sake, so I can live with myself. The thought occurs to me - some dogs aren't meant to run in a fenced in yard or park. Neither are some men and women...


Addendum: As of 2010, that little valley is now covered by a 18 hole golf course and a planned community with covenants, consisting of houses only the rich can afford. The sage brush has been replaced with manicured lawns. When it rains the only smell is that of the Chemlawn residue running off the lawns into the ground…