Walking in El Carrizalito
2-25-'06

Either Marcia or me, we try to take the two dogs...for a good long walk here, nearly each and every morning. Puppy and Candy, my god how they look forward to this. They're both strong, fast runners, lovers of the chase. Puppy is street-dog mix from city of Loreto. She's medium size, has somewhat Shepard features with a winter-plush coat, just a little too much so for this Baja climate. Puppy's just over three now, I believe. Candy is Pit Bull and Labrador, according to the vet we got her from in Cd. Constitution. Damn she was ugly then but she's turned now to sleek short-coated beauty. All muscle with great form and she's a real desert flyer. A little older than two now, you should see her moves.

It's my morning, and before I can finish my a.m. exercises, these mutts are trying to hurry me along. By time I am ready they're quite wild with excitement and making it difficult for me to strap on my sandals. My sights are set on a gradually up-sloping hill about half mile distant. There's a good animal trail up there that I want to hook up with...it taking me in a round-about route to where I'd like to pretty much get, which is mid La Ballena (the whale) beach, me wanting to beach comb a good part of the way back here to camp. Cross country, off we head for that trail.

On this morning, one of my side objectives is to find small chunks of Una De Gato wood that I want to cut for inlayed shell work. Spiny oyster, purple and pearl oyster, I've such lovely things ta play with here. I take a zigzag course, letting the Una De Gato trees pull me this and that way, other things that catch my interest treating me likewise. The dogs are constantly flashing in and out of view in their constant hunting, their courses being dictated by their keen interest, just like mine was.

Bone dry. It hasn't rained in over a year. All last years' growth has been converted to animal droppings. Cow, horse, mule, and burro dung, and jack rabbit feces too. The jacks are still here, though, obvious by the dogs' regular chases. I don't know what they could be eating? Desert bird life in the neighborhood has dropped to nearly nothing.

I stumble myself into what are some mammoth and ancient trunks. What incredible trees, these Una De Gatos. Most of those still living here have felt the bite of mens' axes. Firewood. A long time ago, from 70 to 100 years ago, the fruit of their labor was stacked above high tide line on Playa Carrizalito, waiting for an occasional steamship with goods to pay with in trade. Firewood, salted shark fins, cheese, that's what they negotiated here with to get their coffee, sugar, tobacco, corn, lard and beans.

I've cut small diameter pieces before. A weather-worn piece about the size of a 2" pipe, maybe ten inches long, which lays like a heavy piece of cast iron in the hand, can have growth rings totaling about a hundred years; and so close together that you'd need a good magnifying lens to count them. That's pure heart wood with lots of its outer surface slowly weather away. Whew! What a polish you can put on a well sanded slab.

There are generally two kinds of stumps here, live and dead. I've developed a theory as to how some trees survived being savaged, and some obviously didn't. My thing goes that if the chopping was done during a wet period, the roots had the chance and energy to send up new shoots thus being renourished. But if the cutting was done during times of intense drought (way back we've experienced the last three years of a six year one), well, those are just dead stumps now.

All heart wood, hard! dead stumps.

Lately I've taken to photographing the grander and more elegantly knarled examples of both the survivors and the losers. Imagine a considerably hacked at trunk which measures between two to five feet across at it's incredibly contorted base, with substantial regrowth trees sprouted all up around it. Applying the 2" = 100 years that I'm discovering while cutting, how old was the original core at the time of its near destruction? These are extremely long rooted, long lived trees. With some of the real grandees I'm guessing an excess of five thousand years.

There's an all-heart-wood, triple forked trunk about a hundred yards from our gate. Surely it measures over 2' at the base, and if extracted and weighed would top scale at well over a metric ton. It's not the biggest one around. I know there's others that would go double that. And medium to small trunks, in some areas here, simply litter the landscape; some of them magnificently weathered sculptures, roughly polished by the elements. Rock hard. Hit it with yer ax and listen ta yer ax sing. Try as you might to pull even the smallest of these free from their ancient anchorages, ha! Good luck. I kick 'em all ta test their stubbornness. I've found very few that even budge.

There's a very good market for heart wood of Una De Gato, Ironwood (which we don't have in the rancho) and mesquite. I know participants in the trafficking of such stuff, both at ground level here and far off. We've told Chayo that the stumps on El Carrizalito are strictly "hands off". He does business with a guy in Ensenada who ship containers to the orient where it's turned into expensive inlayed flooring. These stumps tell much of the history of this place and that's why we want to keep them here. Lately I've been looking at the sculpted terrain of the ranch, trying to visualize the dead stumps as live trees. This place is still extremely beautiful with the regrowth that exists now. But oh how richly vegetated it must have been before men with axes and machetes and their animals started molesting it.

Trees older than Christ...we feel are deserving of our protection. If those here who want to cash in on those ejido parcels (namely ex-ejido chief Gutierrez) ever succeed in their continuing efforts, we know what will become of these incredible beings. Reason enough for us to continue the fight.

As we climb the slope and head for that trail intersect, we leave the Una De Gatos behind, them preferring life in what you could call the bottoms. Palo Blancos take over then as the ground rises; this species, perhaps, having deeper reaching roots. Or maybe it gets by on less water? We easily find the well worn path, the dogs racing down hill ahead of me, them not sated yet in the lust fer the chase. This route takes us down through a short arroyo that empties its intermitted load onto a pancake-flat plain that I'm estimating at fully 30 acres. Other short arroyos empty into this natural bowl, too. In times of heavy rains this quickly turns to Laguna Carrizalito. I've seen cows wading across it more than knee-deep, all this fresh water.

It's ringed by mangle dulce trees, especially at its northern end, and that's where we come out of low hills and into this basin. The surface dirt is fluffy, soft stuff that really holds foot prints. We're just starting across this when I see the flash of some critter darting through the low shrubs just off to north side of my heading. A jack? A coyote? I'm aware of questioning. The dogs, too, have picked up on this, the chase being on.

In just seconds then a medium size bobcat leaps up into a large Ocotillo, precariously balancing maybe eight feet above the dogs. This cat wasn't comfortable with its positioning, though. Not at all. Real quick it made a jump to ground and off the chase went back up through the quite vegetated area we'd just come down from. For a while I could hear the action but not see it. Then nothing, with me knowing the chase was still on. I stood there scanning the up slopes, waiting to see movement in the distance and, I do. There's something tan running up a nearly naked, steep incline. First I'm thinkin' it's the cat but then I recognize it as Candy. She's lost the hot trail but is crazily searching.

Then Puppy's bark, her still not visible, comes to me. Then I do see her and she's at the base of a three trunked, 25' tall Palo Blanco tree near the bottom of this steep incline. Then Candy realizes what's up and starts barking treed, too. The slope was so steep that she could dance around up there just about at level of the cat, which was as high up as it could get, and not more than 15" from her grasp. I let 'em bark treed there fer a couple of minutes before I whistled 'em off, which they responded to almost immediately. "Good dogs," I congratulated them on their panting, tongues lolling return. We all stood there then and watched as cat jumped and quickly made its way up and over the hill. With just a nudge they'd a been again off after it.

We work across this flat and just as we start the slight rise that goes up and then down to the beach, a jack takes off in straight-path flight right in front of dogs that are just recovering their breath. Bam! They're off again, kicking it into high gear so fast it amazed me, and maybe even that jack. In a flash they'd all done at least 100 yards before the chase veered into obscuring vegetation. I knew we'd meet up at the waters edge. And I hardly do get there and they're back and splash right in and cooling off.

Seemingly, they enjoy beach combing as much as I do. There's birds to chase, dried trumpet fish beaks to chew and just all sorts of run-and-splash games to play...as I slowly make my way back toward camp atop this sea- tossed rock and shell rubble. Subjects, that's what my eye's peeled for: Old sea-sculpted shells that I can inlay or overlay highly polished other shell in or on. I don't find exactly what I'm looking for, but after a half hour or so of this, and then another short walk back through the surrounding desert, I empty a considerable double handful of possible pieces upon my crowded "idea" table. Geez...what a mess this gets ta be.

Email: david@dondavidonbaja.com