Posted on October 15, 2017October 21, 2017 by Jonathan Gay

Upland Erosion Repair

One of the biggest responsibilities of a land manager is to preserve and improve the soils of the land. Rain and water flow will always create some erosion but our goal is to minimize the erosion and to have the rate of new top soil formation exceed the rate at which our topsoil flows into ours creeks and ocean. Also, areas where water flows and collects can be the most productive and important areas on the ranch for plants and animals. There is more water available in the soil and there is potential for the soils to be deeper and more fertile as the drainage areas collect sediment that flows from the hills. Our goal on the ranch is to have healthy productive vegetation that will slow water flows and capture sediment in all of our drainage areas.

One of the most destructive and easiest to repair erosion features on a ranch is an upland head cut. This is a vertical face of active erosion where there are not enough plants to slow the water and protect the soil. Cattle like wet areas and their concentrated hoof action can create head cuts with poorly managed grazing.

Bay Hill Gully

Head cut and gully

After reshaping

A layer of compost to feed the soil

Straw and jute netting

Rocks to spread water flow

Ready to grow

Watering

Grass growing

We are developing our techniques for using organic matter, soil and grass for repairs instead of intense rock armor. This requires more work and attention but we believe it provides a better long term result with less expensive materials. This gully is on a steep hillside but has a small watershed. It’s fed by a seasonal spring so the erosion was probably caused by animals trampling the moist vegetation and exposing bare soil to the flowing water. There are more issues up the hill but its too steep to access with an excavator so we have focused our repair on the bottom section and hope to capture any sediment that flows down the hill before it reaches the creek.

The repair process was to shape the edges of the gully and ensure there was good topsoil in the bottom of the gully. We then added a layer of compost, and fast growing seed. We also layered in some the grass and seed from the top layer removed from the site. This provides native seed bank in the bottom of the drainage. Straw was added to protect the soil from water flow and jute netting holds the straw in place. The rock lines keep the netting and straw in contact with the soil and help keep flowing water spread out to minimize it’s force on the soil. We had watered the completed work to sprout the grass and stabilize the soil. To keep soil stable on a steep hill like this, you need healthy living soil covered with grass. The soil organic matter, roots, fungi and microbe produce a “glue” that holds the soil together against flowing water. By irrigating we give the soil a chance to heal before the rains and cold weather. The site needs to be checked throughout the rainy season and potentially repaired with straw and grass plugs. There is a electric fence around the gully and animals will be excluded while the soil heals.

Freestone Ranch Large Gully

Gully in 1993

Gully in 2017

There large gully on Freestone Ranch is probably 50 years old. Small head cuts over time led to a 600′ long gully that sent around 15,000 cubic yards of soil into our creeks. It was fairly stable when we came to the ranch but there was a small active head cut at the bottom of the gully that was starting to work it’s way up. We did a small repair and excluded the cattle with an electric fence and now, the gully is no longer eroding and is full of lush and diverse native vegetation. It’s a favorite place for the deer to rest in the moist soft bottom. There is also a small gully in the upper right of the photo where we did repairs, tree planting and cattle exclusion.

Freestone Ranch RCD Head Cut Repair

Head cuts in 2013

RCD repair in 2015

Another example is the Gold Ridge RCD head cuts repairs pictured above on Freestone Ranch. The RCD removed topsoil to shape a smooth contour and then armored the area with rock. They also funded materials for an electric fence to exclude the cattle from the area. We have planted willows to encourage vegetation in that rocked area.

Bay Hill Tunnel Gullies

Gullies in 2015 before repairs

Gullies in 2017 after repairs

In the photos above from the Bay Hill Ranch, we were able to take some top soil that had been captured in a pond and move it back up to fill the gullies. The upper gully in the photo actually drained into an underground tunnel. The water was flowing into a rodent tunnel that became enlarged over time and caused a head cut and gully to form above. The after photo shows a simple contour but the simple shape means the top soil is staying where it belongs instead of filling in our pond. Our rotational grazing and lower stocking level make the cow trails pronounced in the 2017 photo.

Bay Hill Head Cut

We brought some sediment recovered from a pond and filled in this head cut to keep it from continuing to progress up the hill. There are a few redwood trees planted in the area to see how they will do. It’s a moist area with deep soils so they are doing fairly well but the spot is probably too windy and the small redwood is showing some wind sculpting already.

Head Cut in 2015

Repair in 2017

After repair with electric fence

Redwood feeling the wind

Bay Hill Small Drainage

This small drainage is in a moist area. It has good diverse native vegetation but cattle and sheep trailing along the moist bottom has created a series of head cuts in the bottom. We repaired the top head cut to keep it from continuing to move up into the top of the drainage.

Drainage in 2015

Drainage in 2017

Badger damage to repair

Head cut repair

Active head cut

Posted on October 15, 2017October 15, 2017 by Jonathan Gay

River Ranch

The River Ranch is west of Round Valley on the Eel River in Mendocino County. The top reaches 4000′ elevation with pines, firs and oaks at the top. As the ranch drops 3000′ down to the river, the vegetation shifts to oaks, maples, madrones, buckeyes, digger pines and native grasses. The incredible trees, grasses and wildflowers are remnants of the stewardship of the Native Americans that called California home for thousands of years. More recently, settlers established multiple homesteads and even a school on the ranch. As the economics of homesteading faded, much of the land in this area was consolidated into larger ranches. Fences, roads and ponds were built to support timber and larger scale cattle ranching in the area. We are working to respect all of the contributions to the land from our predecessors.

Eel River

Eel river in summer

Fog over the Eel River

Gate on a tree

Cherry Creek

Snow at the top of the ranch

Pond at Reyes Place

River otters at Lewis Flat

Posted on October 14, 2017October 15, 2017 by Jonathan Gay

Bay Hill Ranch

Bay Hill Ranch is perched on the hills about Bodega Bay with a creek and watershed that supports steelhead and drains into the bay at Cheney Gulch. The ranch was farmed and heavily grazed by sheep for 150 years. Topsoil on the ranch has blown away and been carried down in the mud flats of Bodega Bay by Doran Beach. We have been caring for the ranch since 2015. The valleys of the ranch have gullies that reach 20 feet below the historic flood plains. Tens of thousands of cubic yards of soil have eroded from the valleys of the ranch into the bay. The northern portion of the ranch and creeks are heavily impacted by farming and invasive eucalyptus trees while the southern portion sustains an impressive ecosystem of native plants and wildlife. Bedrock and two sediment capture ponds were built by the RCD in the mid 80’s have helped stop the flow of soils into the bay but there is still much that we are working to do to improve the vegetation, soils and health of the creeks. The springs on the ranch were a stopping ground for Native Americans returning from Bodega Bay with their shellfish harvest. It’s easy to imagine Indians camped by the spring and eating shell fish and thimble berries.

In 2006 there was an effort to turn the ranch into a rock quarry that was stopped by community protest. The ranch infrastructure was ignored and the land was overgrazed by cattle after that until we started work on it in 2015.

Ocean across Bay Hill

Hill pond

Cows on hill

Erosion evidence

Sediment pond spillway

Eucalyptus along creeks

Point Reyes from Bay Hill

Pond and pump hose

Gully repair

Spillway repair

Rock for erosion work

Eucalyptus spreading

Posted on October 10, 2017December 19, 2017 by Jonathan Gay

Restoration Ranching

Vision

For us, restoration ranching is about restoring a healthy relationship between people and the nature we live in. At Freestone Ranch, our model for ranching is a collaboration with nature where nature supports our needs for food, water, air, beauty and a home and our presence and efforts make the ecosystems around us healthier, more diverse and more productive. The Native Americans who created and tended the landscapes we value are a source of inspiration for us as we work and learn to have positive impacts on the ecosystems we are responsible for.

Why Cattle

The plant ecosystems in our area evolved with disturbance. Unlike many trees, grasses cannot voluntarily shed their leaves, so they need something in their environment to return their biomass back to the soil to keep grass plants healthy and abundant. It’s an important process for cycling nutrients, improving soils, and increasing diversity.

As recently as about twelve thousand years ago, there were megafauna like mammoths and giant sloths that ate the grasses, shrubs, and trees. When those large herbivores went extinct, perhaps from human hunting and climatic shifts, fire took primary responsibility for larger scale disturbances. The Native Americans used intentional fire extensively as a tool to manage these landscapes and keep them open and productive for humans and wildlife alike. Today, fire is not a tool we can as extensively and precisely as cattle, but the millennia-old legacy of cyclical disturbance can be continued with cattle, whose physiology and digestive tracts serve as proxies for large animals of long ago.

For us, working with domestic ruminants to keep grasslands open and healthy is not about recreating the past – but rather, using the resources available in the present to support a better future.

Posted on October 9, 2017October 15, 2017 by Jonathan Gay

Freestone Ranch

Freestone Ranch is our home ranch. It’s mostly grass with trees along the creeks. It’s in the transition zone from the redwood forests to our north and the large ranches and grasslands to the south. It’s between the towns of Valley Ford and Freestone in West Sonoma County. In the late 1800’s it was a dairy. The train passing the ranch and through Valley Ford would have taken milk to the Sausalito ferry on it’s way to the city. Later it was a sheep ranch. In the 80’s a developer subdivided the ranch and sold 10 house lots with a plan to develop the remaining ranch into a vineyard using irrigation water pumped from the creek. We purchased the ranch in 2004 and have been growing grassfed beef for the local community over 10 years here.

Work we do

Fencing and water troughs – We’ve installed wildlife friendly fencing, and water troughs to implement our rotational grazing program.
Erosion repairs – Work to repair several gullies and other erosion issues keeps the soil on the ranch and out of our steelhead friendly Ebibias creek and the Estero Americano.
Rotational grazing – A key goal of our grazing program is to reduce the density of the non-native velvet grass in favor of a more diverse mix of native perennial grasses.
Invasive plant reduction – We graze, mow, pull and cut to reduce the populations of non native plants like blackberry, cotoneaster, multiflora rose, velvet grass, eucalyptus, and acacia on the ranch.
Trees – Willows, oaks, madrone, redwood, and wax myrtle are our favorite trees to plant and protect from cattle and deer browsing.
Barns – We believe in the value of investing rural agricultural infrastructure and have had the opportunity to build a hay and an equipment barn on the ranch.
Water – Water is key to life and we invest in the health of our creeks and watersheds by fencing cattle out of the creeks, building a stock pond to increase our water resilience and create wildlife habitat, and treating all the water on the ranch with the reverence it deserves.
Birds – Since we’ve been caring for the ranch, populations of swallows and red wing blackbirds have moved on the ranch. Quail scatter along the road. The raptors appreciate the grass cover that provides habitat for the rodents they depend on for food as they ride the updrafts where the coastal breeze sweeps over our hills.