Gill’s farm welcomes new family member
As I drove up my driveway Saturday, I was delighted to find the cow I’ve nicknamed Star, had given birth to a beautiful little calf.
Of course, Mr. Boo’s genetics are quite obvious. The calf has an all-black body, adorned with a splash of white on the face. Star managed to put a little design on the face, but there’s no doubt who sired this calf.
The little bit of rain I received here over the last week, was enough to give a good irrigation to the hills, and encourage the growth of the green grass. I recorded 0.49 inches. Our season total is only 5.02 inches so far.
One person who lives roughly a mile away, reported getting 1.61 inches. At first glance, it seems like too much difference to not be a mistake. Surely he must have left a dollop of water in the bottom of his gauge and forgot to dump it from a previous rain. But I know this guy, and he knows better. This is surely an example of how much difference there can be between showers and rain squalls, separated by short distances, sometimes only yards. With the measuring stations a mile apart, it’s obvious how things can change.
I live next to a hillside topping out at about 1,600 feet. The floor of the Tule River Canyon lying between the slopes of the foothills from Springville to River Island, is relatively level. It’s not flat, but in comparison to the surrounding hills, it’s a curving flat area. Sometimes small shower cells bump into the hillsides, and I’ll record 30-50 percent more rain than folks nearby. Apparently, shower cells within the storm slide along the hills, until they slow down or run into an obstructing hill. When they do, I record more rain.
We’ve all seen the shower cells move across nearby areas, as we stand in the dry watching a hard rain a short distance away. That is evidently what happened in this instance. A hard shower moved up the center of the canyon, and stopped before it reached me or swerved off to the side. It’s also possible it rained out the moisture in the cell before it got to my area.
This tendency for precipitation totals to vary so widely, seems to also be a characteristic of the foothills. Canyons, ridges, flats, and draws will shepherd the small showers this way and that. They bump into a ridge, scuttle through a draw, and rain more in one place than another. Out on the valley floor this isnt quite so apparent, though rainfall totals will vary from place to place. However, there might be something else in play.
In my boys’ younger days, one of the activities we got into was racing pigeons. It was amazing to us how you could turn a bird loose four hundred miles from home, and within hours they’d land on their home coop. There are several theories about this unerring ability to find home. The one appearing most logical to me is: they read and follow the magnetic patterns of the earth.
One afternoon I was scanning down the valley with binoculars, watching for one of my birds to arrive. I spotted him flying at least 30 degrees off what seemed like the proper course to the house. It was apparent the bird wasn’t looking for our house, as we knew they didn’t fly by sight.
As I watched the bird angling past my coop, he suddenly winged left. Now he was flying directly toward me, and was following the bottom of a shallow draw. The house and coop sat less than 50 feet from the bottom of the depression. When the bird got within a few yards of the house it quickly banked toward us, made one quick circle, and slid into the coop.
My father was able to
“witch for water” using a forked willow branch. I’ve watched him walk back and forth over gullies out in the hills looking for a spot to put in a pond to water cattle. The forked stick would dip at one specific area, and not move in others. When the bulldozer dug in the spot where it dipped, often where there were no indications of moisture, it never failed to produce an outcropping of water sufficient for a pond.
I’ve long felt there must be some sort of magnetism, at least something similar to magnetics, attracting the forked stick when held by the human hand. I’ve done it and actually had the twisting force slip the bark off the limb as it rotated in my grip.
If there is some force around water under the ground, might there be a pattern of magnetism the sensitive brain of a pigeon could follow? I watched my inbound pigeon make an abrupt turn and follow the contour of the draw leading to my house. It made me wonder if he was following the magnetism of water in the soil underneath.
If the pattern of magnetism varies from area to area, and a pigeon or any migrating bird or animal can sense it, they might be able to navigate long distances by this means. Young birds, having never flown a migration route from Canada to Mexico, unerringly find their way. They must be following something, other than the tail feathers of the next bird ahead of them.
If animals make use of a field of magnetism, if men can find water with a willow stick, is it beyond belief the movements of weather formations could be affected by the same attraction?