The Ranch-(Rancho Santa Ynez)

Outside my sleeping quarters at Rancho Santa Ynez is a magnificent old cactus, upon which hangs two skulls. One is a cow’s head, complete with hair and teeth, but minus one eye. The remaining one fast becoming desiccated.

The other skull very old. It is sun-bleached, has a pretty necklace of beads draped artistically over it and placed within one of its eye-sockets is a small halogen spotlight, which gives it the appearance of a crystal-gaze that follows you, like any good portrait.

Hanging between these two skulls, suspended by a rusting wire, is a charming little plastic baby doll.

 I was somewhat reluctant to ask the ranch owner the significance of these adornments, but he was a very genial fellow, a fourth generation Rancho, so I plucked up courage and was surprised to find that it was 'just a custom' to place such things by ranches. Now I know. Or do I?

 Desert, like a dried-up sea all around, six hundred meters high. Quite fertile for the imagination, if not for the cattle. My mind slipped back to the stories told to me on the long train rides over the Canadian Rockies, the bus over the border to Seattle, and then to San Francisco. There I learnt “the earth was flooded to a depth of nine miles”. Wow!. And when did this happen? Four thousand years ago. You may ask yourself, as I did, where all this water came from? “Rain and underground reservoirs.” So, there you have it. No need to question. All that is required is faith.

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