DRY CRIK Journal

My mother’s family history in the Visalia area spans over a century and a half, her great-grandfather John Cutler was elected as the first judge of Tulare County in 1853, at a time when settlers were scarce and the outcome of the election was known well beforehand. At issue was the location of the County Seat and as the voters were equally divided, the proponents for Visalia scoured the countryside for one more vote.

Finally locating a trapper in the upper regions of Dry Creek, they brought him to town, wined and dined him for a week before the election. Trapper Sam Bryson cast the last and deciding vote. His place of residence was challenged as the creek at the time was the boundary between Fresno and Tulare Counties.

“Do you live in Tulare County, Mr. Bryson?”
“I don’t know,” was his prompt reply.
“Where do you live?” he was asked.
“Sometimes I live on one side of Dry Creek and sometimes on the other, and my home is generally under an oak tree,” answered Bryson. “But I am an American citizen and as I don’t vote in Fresno County, I claim a right to vote here.”

His short speech was met with cheers and that’s how Visalia became the County Seat.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 5:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

                    We at last struck a trail that has recently been
                    cut for the purpose of bringing in cattle. We
                    came to camp here by a little meadow…It is
                    at an altitude of 7,800 feet. Here is a succession
                    of grassy meadows – one called Big Meadow is
                    several miles in extent – and some men have cut
                    a trail in and have driven up a few hundred cattle
                    that were starving on the plains.
                          - William H. Brewer, 18 June 1864

I know the place
my grandfather’s grandfather found
to escape the drought, heard the voices

of his vaqueros when I got turned around
in the tight pines near Ellis Meadow – easy
to lose yourself and time altogether – feel

them close to the black rings of stone.
Up from Eshom where the Yokuts held
their last Ghost Dance that upset the settlers

in Visalia and over Redwood Saddle
to graze Rowell and Sugarloaf bunch grass.
After nearly a hundred summers,

the cows knew the way. Once
off the trail, it’s much the same:
pine needle carpets and granite cut

by snowmelt creeks and green stringer
meadows, wind and river talking loud-enough
to hear      damn-near anything.

                                 for Marcellino

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 5:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

About the time I was ten, I packed a Remington .22 rifle over these foothill cowtrails, shooting ground squirrels, but much too often for my mother, I brought home rattles as some measure of my impending manhood. Most local outdoormen have rattlesnake stories – and once begun, the first ones pale with each successive tale. Nearly a half-century later, though, I tend to leave rattlesnakes alone unless they are in the yard, barn, or places we frequent. I had the good fortune to work with Loren Fredricks, a native of Dry Creek and a rodeo and cowboy legend beyond Tulare County. I was surprised to learn during those years that he would never kill a rattlesnake regardless of the circumstances.

I attribute much of my change in attitude to age and an appreciation for the rattlesnake's predominately honest nature, but I also suspect that I leave one or two in places where the uninitiated might gain more respect for the wild. The Western Diamondback of our region truly wants to be left alone, and generally doesn’t rattle unless it’s threatened. The herd of cats we encourage around our house know where the snakes are and usually corral them to rattle when they’re on the move.

August 2005

Every spring, the Yokut tribes would perform a Rattlesnake Dance, the last of which was held at the Tule River near Porterville about 1870. Trahundun was both the messenger (winatun) and the right hand man of Tihpiknit, keeper of the underworld, in the Yokuts’ folklore, crawling and spying upon the natives to identify who was good and who was bad. The bad people were reported and dispatched to the underworld. Trahundun had the power to facilitate their departure even without striking or biting.

Continue reading "Trahundun Pahn (Rattlesnake Land)" »

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The great leveler
in a frying pan
upon a camp stove

or off the mountains
into an inland sea
to float food and freight

from Stockton to Visalia �
word traveled faster
than the water subsided

in the summer of �68,
how chickens starved
in the branches of trees.

After 41 consecutive days
of rain, the DG
on Dennison Ridge

gave under the weight
of snow and dammed
the South Fork

into a three day lake,
taking part of the Garfield
Grove�s Giant Sequoias

to the Wilderness of Woodville,
scattering redwood and yellow pine
for forty-two miles

where adobe houses melted
and tens of thousands cattle
drowned on Christmas Eve.

Like any other perfect
suburbia with cul-de-sacs
between shopping malls,

concrete walls correlling tracts
of two-storey houses,
business is booming

upon the alluvium
where chickens starved
in the branches of trees.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)