The Land

After a year or so of searching for land with potential conservation value that we also could live on part time, we purchased 650 acres of oak savannah in San Luis Obispo County, California in 2001.  The land, which is in (or near) a wildlife corridor between the two sections of the Los Padres national forest. Originally part of a Spanish land grant, our parcel has been used for cattle grazing, and although it's likely been overgrazed at times in the past, it is in relatively good shape. 

Our intention for this land is preservation of oaks and habitat for wildlife.  In general, our management inclination is to "leave it alone", but given that we are an island surrounded by invasive species, this is not likely to be possible in the long term.  We already have to use a combination of hand weeding (for small patches) and spray (for large patches) to eliminate Star Thistle that pops up every so often.  In addition to that we have two other non-native thistles, but the level of infestation is so high, that neither mechanical removal or herbicides is practical.  Like all California grasslands, our land is covered with Eurasian annual grasses with only a scattering of native grasses occurring--mostly in the drier, sandy areas.  Our distribution in age of oak trees is decent and improving since we stopped grazing.  This issue here is oaks regenerate underneath their own drip line, and that is also where the cattle like to hide from the sun all summer-killing the seedlings by trampling.  On other grazed lands, the only seedlings that tend to survive are the ones that pop up in rocks or on slopes that are too steep or otherwise not appealing to the cattle.

We currently do not graze at all, although are contemplating some kind of high intensity short term grazing, which would give the native grasses a competitive advantage over the annuals.  The thistles are a separate problem since cattle don't appear to like them very much--the only answer is probably goats, but since we have an occasional mountain lion pass thru, they would have to be guarded.

Since there is a tradition of naming places (usually something starting with "ranch" or "rancho"), we have adopted the name "Silvestre Zopilote Gordo", or "Fat Buzzard Wilderness" (apologizes if we've gotten the adjectives in the wrong order--we're still learning!).  We wanted a Spanish name for historical reasons (not because they did anything good to the land), and we didn't want to call it a ranch, because that implies we're in the cattle business, which, as vegetarians, we certainly aren't.  We could have used Chumash words instead, since they were there for a long time before the Spanish, but we don't know any Chumash, and probably no one could pronounce it, even if we did. As for why the buzzard?   I made up a reason once, but really its just because it sounded good.  There are certainly plenty of fat buzzards around.

The house

We considered remodeling or rebuilding the house for the first few years, but because its is down a steep dirt driveway, a quarter mile from the power pole, we finally decided to build a new house where the barn used to be--along the more accessible road and right near the well and power pole.  The only downside is that we will lose our gravity feed water unless we move the tank higher as well.  The issue there is that the house will sit about 30 feet below the ridge top, and the tank is already near the ridge top--you need about 60 feet of drop to give decent water pressure.

We have been drawing plans for an approximately 1100SF straw bale cabin for a couple of years now, but since we only work on it intermittently, progress is slow.