Taking a break from shoveling the compost into a small trailer, Pepper watched John and Sally ride out of the compound on their way to move the horses from one pasture to the next.
He looked over at Carl and said, "I'd like to learn how to do that."
"Do what?" Carl asked looking up from what he had been working on.
He wondered what Pepper wanted to learn.
"Ride a horse," Pepper answered.
"I guess we could do that after you finish spreading this compost around the orchard," Carl said.
Although Pepper had heard the term compost, he wasn't really sure what it was, or why it was used. His lack of experience with gardens of any kind was making itself known.
He asked, "Why do I need to spread this stuff around the orchard?"
"It gives us something to do with the horse manure you've been hauling out of the barn," Carl answered with a smile. Seeing the puzzled expression on Peppers face, he added, "It is fertilizer for the fruit trees. Nothing goes to waste around here. Even shit is valuable."
Thinking back to the catalogs that he could order seasonal items from, Pepper said, "I thought fertilizer was a kind of powder that came in boxes or bags."
"This is the all natural stuff," Carl said.
It never ceased to amaze him how Pepper thought everything came in a box, bag, or can.
Pepper asked, "Is it better?"
"Yes, it is," Carl said. "The stuff you're talking about is a chemical based fertilizer."
"I didn't know that," Pepper said. "I guess this is organic."
"Yes," Carl answered nodding his head.
There were times when he was amazed at how little Pepper knew. The way he used the term organic made it sound like it was something special.
He looked at Pepper and asked, "What does 'organic' mean to you?"
"It means that it is made without the use of chemicals and stuff," Pepper answered. "You have to pay extra for organic stuff, because it costs more to make it without using chemicals. An organic apple costs a dollar more a pound than an apple that has been sprayed with chemicals."
"Well, the fertilizer that you're shoveling is compost made from the horse manure from the barn. We use it on the fruit trees in the orchard, the vegetable garden, and out in the fields. We don't have to use insecticides out here for the fruits so I guess that makes them organic," Carl said.
"That's good. Organic food is supposed to be a lot better for you," Pepper said. "You should grow more of it."
"This is for feeding folks here," Carl said.
"Why don't you sell it?" Pepper asked.
It was obvious that Pepper didn't understand the difference between having a couple of trees and an orchard for food production.
Carl said, "You won't get rich selling a couple of bushels of cherries."
"You could grow more," Pepper said.
To him it was really simple.
Carl said, "Growing fruits out here is challenging. The orchard started with two kinds of native plums, Norther and Wanata. We've been growing Montmorency cherries out here for years. We just recently got Lodi apples that were grafted onto crabapple rootstock. Hopefully they'll survive a couple more seasons."
"How about oranges?" Pepper asked.
Carl laughed and said, "Oranges won't grow here."
Looking over at the forest, Pepper said, "I thought that you just planted the tree, and then picked the fruit later. I mean, there are all kinds of trees around here. Why can't you grow oranges?"
"The climate is way too cold up here for citrus trees. Just think of it this way. It takes the fruit a certain amount of time to ripen. If it gets cold before the fruit ripens, then it just falls off the tree," Carl said. He patted the Bobcat compact track loader and said, "We better get back to work. I want to fix this."
Picking up the shovel, Pepper said, "Okay."
Carl worked on the Bobcat for another thirty minutes while Pepper shoveled the compost into the trailer. Experience with a shovel had taught him how to work without killing his back. He worked at it in a steady constant pace until the trailer was filled
Pepper set the shovel aside, and then said, "I'm done."
Frustrated by his lack of progress in fixing the hydraulic system, Carl said, "This is going to take us all day if I don't get this fixed. Why don't you drive the ATV over to the orchard and spread the manure?"
"Sure," Pepper said.
He looked at the ATV utility vehicle. It kind of looked like a car, but it wasn't.
He asked, "How do I drive it?"
"It drives just like a car," Carl said.
He went over to the ATV and pointed out the various features to Pepper. After having the features pointed out to him, Pepper felt like he could drive it.
He started to get in when Carl said, "Take the shovel in the bed in the back. When you get to the orchard, shovel about ten shovel loads of compost at the base of a tree, and then move on to the next one. Come back here, when you're done."
"Great," Pepper said.
He drove off barely paying attention to where he was going. He kept looking at various features of the ATV. It didn't seem to go very fast. He looked back at the trailer load of compost, wondering if that was slowing the ATV down.
He managed to find his way to the orchard, and pulled up to the first tree. He got out and grabbed the shovel. He tossed ten scoops of compost at the base of the tree, and then got back into the ATV. He drove it twenty feet forward and repeated his actions.
He muttered, "It sure would be easier with two guys doing this. One guy to drive, and one guy to shovel."
It took as long to unload the trailer as it took to load it. Most of the delay came about because he also had to stop shoveling and drive the ATV. He felt that he had to do all of the work while Carl played with the Bobcat. When he got back to the compost piles, Carl was seated in the Bobcat.
Carl called out, "Park it over there. I'll load it."
While it had taken Pepper more than thirty minutes to load the trailer the first time, it only took Carl ten minutes to load it, using the Bobcat. After the trailer was loaded, Carl went over to the ATV.
He said, "Move over. I'll drive and you'll shovel. It won't take long to get this load spread over the orchard."
"That will be a lot better than what I had to do before," Pepper said.
"That's the idea. There's enough work around here that we can't afford to waste time doing things the hard way," Carl said.
"Why did you have me do it the hard way if you were fixing the Bobcat?" Pepper asked finding it easy to remember the name of the small earthmover.
"What would have happened if I hadn't been able to fix it? We would have lost an hour of work," Carl answered.
Pepper thought about how he ran his business. When something like that would happen, back at the store, everyone would stand around until the repairman fixed the problem. The idea of doing the job the old fashioned way, would never have occurred to him. The attitude out here was very different. They believed that when something needed to get done, it got done.
He would never have come up with the idea of fixing a broken piece of equipment himself. The men and women out here had no qualms about rolling up their sleeves and diving into a repair, regardless of previous experience with that particular piece of equipment. He had watched with amazement when one of them would figure out how things should work and then figure out why it wasn't working correctly.
There were other things that he had noticed while at the ranch. When something broke, they took care of it right away. One day a light bulb had burned out in the barn. Carl had sent him to fix it before mucking the stable. The next thing Pepper knew, he was standing on a ladder changing a light bulb. It was his first real experience with a ladder.
The point was that back at his store, he would have let several light bulbs burn out before calling in someone to replace them. The store would have looked dark and dingy before the problem was fixed. Out here, that would never happen.
The ranch hands never put things away dirty. Even shovels were cleaned before being returned to where they were stored. They took the minute or two necessary to wipe it down or wash it off. Despite the fact that each horse dropped forty pounds of manure a day, the barn was relatively clean all of the time. He couldn't imagine what a stall would look like after a week without being cleaned. All he knew was that he wouldn't have wanted to be the one to clean it. There were smells, but they were the healthy smells of life.
The net result was that the ranch always looked clean despite the age of the buildings. All of the buildings were painted. The interiors of buildings, even little storage sheds, were well lit and cheery. The gravel drive was level and without ruts. Fence posts were straight and strong. Gates swung easily without dragging against the ground.
Life on the ranch was one of constant activity, but that didn't mean people were rushing around all of the time. Very few things were rushed. Most activities were performed in a slow, measured, consistent pace; with significant planning taking place, before any task was started.
It took the rest of the day to finish spreading the compost over the orchard. By the time they were finished, there was a smelly mounded ring around the base of each tree, and a third of the compost pits were empty. The odor of the horse manure had transformed into a deeper earthier smell as a result of decomposition.
Standing in the orchard, Pepper looked at the job they had done. Again he felt a little pride in his work.
He said, "It looks kind of nice out here."
"Mrs. Daniels is very proud of the orchard," Carl said.
The orchard might have been small, but it produced a lot of fruit that was used to feed the people on the ranch. They had apple butter and applesauce made from the apples. Cherry preserves, cherry jam, and cherry pies were made from the cherries. Plum preserves were made from the plums.
A small flash of red attracted Pepper's attention. He pointed at it and asked, "What is that?"
"That is a fox," Carl answered.
It amazed him how little Pepper knew about wildlife. By this time, the fox had already disappeared.
"I thought that foxes were only in England," Pepper said.
"Why would you think that?" Carl asked.
"You know ... fox hunts and all," Pepper answered realizing that he was again demonstrating his ignorance.
"We have foxes here," Carl said. Shaking his head, he added, "I don't know much about fox hunts, except what I've seen in the movies. It looks like a foolish way to hunt, if you ask me."
Pepper asked, "Do you hunt?"
"Of course I do," Carl answered.
"You would kill Bambi?" Pepper asked.
"No. I wouldn't kill a young deer. I go after fully grown bucks," Carl answered, "I also hunt pheasant, grouse, and elk."
"Hunting is cruel," Pepper declared.
"No, it is not," Carl said.
Pepper said, "Animals have rights. They have the right to live without fear of being hunted."
"That's the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard. Every animal is hunted. That fox we just saw was hunting for food. It wasn't on its way to the supermarket to pick up a package of meat. It was looking for an animal that it could eat. The reason it was so skittish is because there are animals looking to eat it, too," Carl said.
Pepper didn't quite know how to respond to that. When people talked about hunting it was always in the context of people doing the hunting. Everyone knew that hunters were sadists. It was always portrayed as a viscous cruel activity, in which animals were made to suffer.
"You make them suffer," Pepper said.
"You've never seen a pack of wolves take down an elk. It is a long drawn out fight for survival. There's nothing quick or painless about that. When I shoot an elk, it is dead right then and there," Carl replied.
"You're kidding," Pepper said.
"No, I'm not."
"People have hunted a lot of species to extinction," Pepper said.
Nodding his head in agreement, Carl said, "That's true. Of course, in those days hunting was always viewed in a local context. If there were a lot of something around locally, then you just figured there were a lot of them around everywhere. It was easy to believe that if you killed off a bunch of them that it didn't matter because there were always more where they came from. We know better, now.
"We manage game on international, national, state, and regional basis. You might be able to legally hunt something here, but not fifty miles down the road. We limit what can be hunted, how much can be hunted and when we can hunt them. With a regular license, I am allowed to hunt one elk a year and it has to be a male. I can only hunt it during a specific period of time. I can hunt elk, but not grizzly bears.
"I could shoot an elk any time I wanted. I know where they are. Of course, I don't do that. I wait until hunting season and take only animals that are legal. A modern hunter isn't an indiscriminate killer. Believe it or not, I belong to a number of conservation organizations, because I want my kids to have the chance to hunt, too."
"I've always had this image of a bunch of drunken guys out shooting anything that moved," Pepper said.
Carl snorted. He said, "I've seen people like that, but I wouldn't call them hunters. Donny leases out a little land for hunting. Every once in a while, we get a bunch of yahoos who come out here from the city thinking they can do whatever they like out here. Let me tell you, they never come back."
"That sure isn't how hunting is portrayed in Los Angeles," Pepper said.
Carl said, "Let's head back to the barn. You wanted a riding lesson."
"Oh, yeah," Pepper said.
He had forgotten all about that.
The two men got in the ATV and headed back to the complex. Pepper was looking forward to learning how to ride a horse. It never crossed his mind that there had been a time when he would have been terrified of climbing atop one of the large animals. That was before he had become used to being around them. He had forgotten that less than a month earlier he had been scared of standing near one.
On the way back to the barn, Carl commented, "I'm kind of surprised that folks in Los Angeles don't object to people riding horses."
"I never thought about that," Pepper said.
Carl said, "I guess if city folks like to do it then it must be okay."
"Well, they know the animal is being treated all right. They love their animals," Pepper said.
He knew it sounded stupid even as the words left his mouth.
"Unlike us," Carl said.
Pepper was silent for a minute thinking about it. He thought about how he used to view the agricultural industry. Farms were factories where plants and animals were treated like parts on an assembly line.
Finally, he said, "I guess that for most people, what happens on a farm is kind of mysterious. They don't understand what they see when they drive past a farm. They'll see a field of plants without even knowing what kind of plants they are. They see a large barn, but they don't really know what goes on inside of one. It is easy to imagine all kinds of horrible things.
"I mean ... we know that farmers are raising animals to be slaughtered. To a lot of people, that must mean that you can't care about them. If you don't care about an animal, then what is preventing you from being cruel to it? Nothing. So when you drive past a barn, it is easy to imagine that farmers are performing unspeakable acts on animals inside it."
Carl said, "As you know, I've traveled around a bit. I've seen how people treat each other in cities. Believe me, it isn't very nice. They can step over a junkie lying in a street covered with vomit without a second thought. They can say the nastiest things to each other, without feeling a bit of shame. They can stand by and watch someone starve to death."
"Not everyone is that way," Pepper said.
Carl replied, "That's true, but you and I both know that the vast majority of people in the city are that way. If they weren't, those problems wouldn't exist because they would have solved them by now."
"I guess you're right," Pepper said.
"I think city folks project their lack of concern about people on us," Carl said. "They figure that if they can treat people so poorly, then we must treat animals even worse."
"I guess so," Pepper said.
They reached the storage shed and parked the ATV beside it. Pepper and Carl took a few minutes to wash out the compost from the trailer. Pepper sprayed off the shovel and carried it over to the storage area of the barn while Carl unhooked the trailer.
It was only after the errands were finished that Pepper's riding lesson began. It attracted a lot of attention. Much to his embarrassment, everyone stood around the corral while he mounted the horse. Most of them couldn't remember a time in their lives when they didn't know how to ride, so it was kind of interesting to watch a full grown adult get on a horse for the first time. Unfortunately, nothing exciting or humorous happened during the lesson.
When the lesson was over, people patted Pepper on the back and told him he had done a fine job of sitting astride the horse. It might not have meant much in the grand scheme of things, but Pepper felt good about the praise.
It never dawned on him that this was the first new experience out here that he had initiated.