What
to write about this week? What more
newsworthy topic than our breathtaking citron hillslopes, or the way the clouds
roll across the valley floor, then break against the Sierran spine? The sight of snow coating those gray granite
crags, bare so long that the newly white outlines against blue sky seem
hopelessly romantic?
You hear the wonder of it all spoken
in some circles. I myself don’t remember
a year like this one, but this is only my 23rd spring in this region. Early on in my tenure here I might have
missed a wonder-full spring from lack of familiarity.
A trip up Yokohl Valley would reveal
glaciers of wildflowers cascading down ravines, gleeful cows and calves up to their
shoulders in feed. Mustard, filaree,
fiddleneck, poppies, lupine, brodaiea, snow-in-the-mountains, monkeyflower in
the creeks and rocky crevices – all those names just scratching the surface of
what’s in bloom up there right now. Down
here on the valley floor so many plants are bursting forth in flower that
allergy sufferers are turning indoors in droves.
Juni Fisher gave a concert in
Lindsay a couple of weeks ago, on Valentine’s Day Eve. You might not see an immediate
connection: she does not sing about
wildflowers or spring in particular.
She sings about love in general, wide-ranging love, from that between a
man and a woman most people consider marginal (i.e., “Sideshow Romance”) to
that between a girl and her horse (“Good Night, Good Pony.”) But what makes my heart sing, listening to
her, is where her art comes from.
It comes from the land, from a
culture that knows where its livelihood comes from and what’s required to keep
it. Whether singing about the historic
vaquero way of horse training (“Silver Music”) or the modern life of raising,
working and showing cutting horses (from “Listen,” through “Fillinick” and
“Patrick” to “Ride with Your Heart Open,”) life on the land is the invisible
partner. None of this music would make
sense in New York City.
The day before Juni’s concert, I got
a motorcycle ride up Yokohl Valley. The
wildflower opera was just beginning, the opening scene promising a standing
ovation later. All I could think was “I
hope Paul Buxman is able to get out and paint right now.” So I called him at lunchtime the next day,
and the answer was “no.” He’s farming
two places while his brother-in-law tends his dying wife, doubling Paul’s
spring tractor work, edging into dark at both ends of the day. Yet his enthusiasm was as boundless as ever.
“The agrarian life, Trudy,” he
blurted, “is just so wonderful, isn’t it?
All the things in blossom right now in the rows, the smells of the
grasses as I disk, the slight mastication reminding me of cow’s cud, the
fragrance of the flowers – everything. I
popped all my blisters last night, my hands look just horrible, but it’s all
just so wonderful….” He stopped,
uncharacteristically out of words for the joy he feels from his life on the
land, this painter of our small farm landscapes whose renderings say more than
10,000 words ever could.
We’ll have a chance to celebrate
Paul’s land art next month in Visalia, and to join him in another work of land
art: saving fellow agrarian Will Scott Jr,. whose wells have gone dry, from
going out of business. Helping a
neighbor, “painting him out of a corner,” as Paul describes it, is an intrinsic
part of land culture, embedded in our minds when we look at that scenery. It still thrives where people are connected to
land.
Come join us in celebrating our land
art at Paul’s gallery opening Friday, March 4th at Arts Visalia, 214
E. Oak St. from 6-8 p.m. The show will
be up through Friday March 25th.
The gallery is open Wed.-Sat. noon
to 5:30 p.m., where contributions for the Drill for Will project can be
received and the Buxman lithographs
picked up in return. Meanwhile, bask in
the scenery!
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Trudy
Wischemann is an agrarian activist who writes.
You can send her your wildflower sightings c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay
CA 93247 or leave a
comment below.
