I was reading an article in some magazine the other day that said that Ecuador, what most in the western world think of as a supposedly third world country, is the first country in the world that has passed a law giving certain legal rights to Mother Nature. The exploiters of Ecuador's natural resources would no longer have the right to degrade and denude the land with no consequences. These exploiters could now be held accountable in a court of law. The author of the article went on to say that Ecuador lacked the resources to enforce the law but it's a start toward more accountable use of our natural resources here at home.

I don’t know how many years in the past that I awoke to the realization that the V6 was not just another piece of real estate to be sold with no regrets. What came to mind was the word abhorrent and in my next breath loathing was vile enough to describe the idea of selling the V6. It amounted to the same as selling one of my children which was not going to happen. 

With the idea of ever selling the V6 off the table, what kind of care of the land under family control shall it be? What moves to the top of the list of jobs that need doing? 

My vote as to who or what moves to the top of the list is Mother Nature. I believe that we humans have relieved her of many of her duties on the care of planet Earth. Our tenure I think has many, yet undiscovered consequences that may be very difficult to fix. While Nature has done a remarkable job of balancing the needs and wants of all living things. Now don’t second guess me, I’m not going to suggest that we be like the Lemming’s and we all jump in the ocean and swim till exhausted then drown. What I am suggesting is examining the direction we're heading in now. I believe it to be convenient and comfortable at all cost. But there might come a time when inconvenience could rule when almost everything we eat or use will come in single use plastic containers that will most likely find their way to all the oceans, rivers and lakes of the world and become toxic enough that the majority “of we the people “ will have to inconvenience ourselves to solve this problem and many more just as vexing. 

This is why Mother Nature needs to always sit at the head of the V6 Ranch table. But she needs a Bill of Rights to protect her basic laws. So we need to start with how well we utilize the rainfall that falls on the ranch. Slow is always better than fast, it affects how efficiently we use a drop of rain. This bill of rights will leave no question as to the V6’s commitment to Mother Nature and how she keeps her house in order.

We grant the following Rights to Nature:

1. We at the V6 must realize that the number one way to solve most natural problems is to let Nature do what she always does, first is to  slow down the rain that falls on the ranch. This shall be the method that guides us at the V6 when we are going to disturb the soil for whatever reason.  About five miles of the Little Cholame Creek which is dry in the summer months passes through the west side of the V6. The creek is pretty well armorer plated with Native Cottonwoods trees, Willow trees, and California Broomsage but to maintain this cover and to slow erosion, cattle must be kept out of the creek in the spring and summer months. 

2. The practice of “dry farming” is not sustainable for the V6 Ranch. Raising Barley or Wheat by dry farming is the most common way to raise a crop in our neighborhood. But It’s so very destructive to the soil because you leave the soil surface bare to the sun, which heats the soil to temperature levels that destroy some of soil life and the cold winter temperatures can send soil life into hibernation longer than grass covered soil. In wet years erosion sends more topsoil down the Salinas River to the Pacific Ocean than was sent naturally in the last thousand or maybe ten thousand years before the introduction of the plow. 

3. Bare soil is not a natural condition so there is nothing that can be said in its defense, so we must avoid it. In order for plants and insects to do well on top of the ground the soil has to do well below the ground. To give you an idea of just how busy it is beneath our feet, it takes but one heaping tablespoon of healthy soil to contain a whole host of bacteria, viruses, nematodes, fungi, all together they are 8 billion strong. Then there are all the insects, the earthworms, the sow bug and spiders just to name a few that are balanced by birth and death that man’s heavy hand throws into disarray with his cultural practices.

4. Developing and maintaining a good water system so all the critters that live here can get a drink is a must. And keeping our present well drained road system in good repair is also very necessary. 

5. The V6 cattle, horses, and hunting operations are an important contributor to our financial health and should also be looked upon as useful conservation tools for the betterment of the ranch. 

     I think that if we at the V6 follow and adhere to these five conditions Mother Nature will be most willing to do the rest and because every ranch or farm is different each “bill of rights” will have varying degrees of differences 

But now enter “We the People” who always want more, farmers included. So we farmers will need a lot of commercial fertilizer to grow more and because we’re growing crops that must be singular varieties only, we will also need evermore herbicides and pesticides with never a thought given, that there might be a different way or a better way to raise the necessary food to nourish eight billion folks. I believe we think we are smarter than Mother Nature and we can keep practicing the art of food 

production in its present form with impunity. Well, I’m afraid this attitude will lead us all down a path fraught with seen and unseen consequences for our future. 

           It sounds nice to give up overgrazing and dry farming and I see ranchers who have been carrying these practices on for most of their lives and continue getting by and see nothing wrong with their management programs or its effect on the soil. So what secret has the V6 got going to pay the bills that others don’t? I think most importantly it happened when I gave myself permission to change the way I manage the V6 and not the way tradition has told me to. It’s when a friend asked me if I wanted to attend a Holistic Resource Management seminar in 1991. It took all three days for the gray matter in my mind to come alive with the prospect that there were better ways to make decisions and then to be able to test and prove whether a decision is a keeper or one that has to be discarded. 

I was also introduced to the idea that the ranch had an unfair advantage,because of its convenient location between two large urban areas San Francisco and Los Angeles and its breathtaking beauty. In 1994, after finishing our shopping Zee and I decided to go to the movies and we saw the movie “City Slickers.” As we got up to leave I said to Zee, “We can do that.” We have the most beautiful ranch ever made, the horses, and 13 saddles You have won showing stock horses. We have a family that can see a recreation future in providing a unique western experience four times a year, when we would be moving our cattle to sell or from one side of the ranch to the other, jobs that had to be done anyway. Well 28 years have come and gone and hundreds of people from all walks of life still come to enjoy the Cowboy side of California. After three days in the saddle, as one lady put it, “I’ve come all the way from New York to California to the V6, to have a most amazing experience. where I got to help start moving a herd of cattle and three days later I had the joy of helping drive this herd to the ranch headquarters to be sold a few days later. Besides the good food, the beautiful ranch, I got to do something that at my work never happens, I got to start at the beginning of my adventure on a Friday morning and on a late Sunday afternoon see it to its successful end when all the herd was put in a pasture to be sold shortly thereafter. It was a very gratifying experience that I shall always remember.” 

            As the commodity markets get ever more reckless and with the weather also becoming less reliable recreation is becoming the V6 ranch real long term future. By utilizing our “unfair advantage” which is the beauty, the cattle, the horses and my family. I believe we have found a niche where Mother Nature, the V6, and people that have this kind of experience on their bucket list can do things that are sustainable for the environment and leaves Mother Nature and her followers smiling. So just to make sure that the V6 can never be divided and spoil this unique blending of people and the environment, the V6 is protected by a conservation easement. It’s a deed restriction that protects the ranch in perpetuity from being divided thus unifying Mother Nature and the Varian family to care for the V6 on into the future. 

                       See Ya 

                         Jack 

Learn more about conservation easements and the wonderful work of the California Rangeland Trust here.