After my marriage to Erik and the bonding of our two lives together, the natural progression was to bring new life to the world. My first pregnancy, like 25 percent of pregnancies, ended with a miscarriage, which was devastatingly sad. In time, however, we welcomed Larry Lyle Londolozi, Quill Dawn Chorus, and Quince Dyani Chante Markegard to our family, which already included Lea. They were all birthed at home, and each labor and delivery brought me closer to nature.
After Quince was born, something unexpected happened to me. I suffered from postpartum depression. I didn’t think anything could rescue me from the despair and pain I felt. Gilbert Walking Bull taught me that with strong vision and intentions, we can accomplish anything, but my agony was profound and without a real cause I could point to. I should have been elated after bringing so much new life into the world. Instead, I entered into a darkness in which I could not fathom the light outside my window. I was having difficulty drawing on the lessons on how to improve my mental state that I had learned from Gilbert. I stopped brushing my hair, wearing clean clothes, and taking care of myself. Instead of feeling more connected with all the life on earth, as I’d expected, I felt completely cut off from it.
Erik knew he had to do something. He had a plane ticket to his family reunion, but instead of leaving me, he missed his flight to come home with a surprise. He bought me my first jersey cow, Daisy, and the rhythm she brought to my life—waking early to milk her at dawn—brought me back to myself.
Daisy quickly became part of the family. With her dark eyes and long eyelashes, which drew everyone in, she became the symbolic healer of our family. Waking up early every morning, I now had a task that was all my own, like a morning meditation, similar to my travels to my old secret spot by the pond. I couldn’t be late getting my boots on and walking out to have my morning alone with Daisy. The steady rhythmic motion of hand milking, alternating my left and right palms as I pressed my cheek against Daisy’s flank, set my brain back into balance and over a matter of weeks lifted my depression.
I decided that my children would be a part of the healing rhythms of ranching too and I would put them right work with me to raise as many animals as we could.
Erik and I had already begun direct marketing our grass-fed beef and lamb, which we raised on the coastal pastures of our ranch. Families flocked to us when we sent out an announcement that we were selling the only local source of grass-fed meats. Markegard Family Grass-Fed soon became a household name amongst our larger community, who loved the taste and nutrition of our meats.
When it came time for lambing, all the kids, especially Lea, were on close watch as the fragile newborns were birthed. Every season there are typically one or two lambs born too weak or their mothers abandon them. Lea knew what to look for when she walked out one foggy morning when she was only eight years old. Droopy ears, head down, difficulty getting up to nurse, and eyes that lack a brightness are the signs she looked for. Lea walked out into the pasture with a keen eye for saving a life. She found a lamb that was the runt and just did not have enough energy to get the first colostrum from the ewe. Lea picked up that lamb, warmed it next to her body, and bottle-fed the colostrum we had saved from a different ewe as she sat in the kitchen. Soon another member of the family joined us at meal times, clicking on the hardwood floors with small hooves. The lamb would sound a soft bleating when she was ready for her next bottle. Following Lea around everywhere she went, the lamb had a new mom and slept in a cardboard box at the foot of her bed. Lea awoke every four hours to bring the lamb a warm bottle. She held her lamb in close and the bond of child and animal formed. Lea at fourteen continues to rescue runts.
We went on to start an organic egg and pastured pork enterprise my son Larry coined Green Eggs and Ham. Two hundred laying hens lived out on our pastures and we converted a stock trailer to hold nesting boxes, roosts, and chicken doors with ramps. The trailer was pulled out to a new patch of pasture each day. The chicken trailer followed the cattle on their moves from pasture to pasture. Pecking through the cow pies they discovered grass seeds and fly larvae. They spread the cow pies throughout the pasture, like a well-scattered compost application. The pecked-through cow manure along with the chicken poop was a perfect balance of the addition of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other nutrients to a field. As we brought the chickens to the pasture it was as if we were filling the role the band-tailed pigeons once played when they flew in such great numbers, each depositing fertilizer upon the lands. When mammals and birds were abundant so was their manure. This in turn kick-started the carbon cycle and the ability for the lands to retain water. By bringing back birds and grazers, we were also bringing fertility to the grasslands.
Later we added chickens and goats for meat and expanded our cattle and sheep herds. Our main driver was to ensure that all of the animals were able to express their inherent traits of being a pig, chicken, cow, goat, or sheep. They ate a diet they were designed to eat and they inhabited lands they were built to inhabit. Understanding the complexity of nature’s template for raising animals took all of my training in wilderness awareness and Erik’s experience as a rancher. We listened to the language of nature. The plans we made took in all the factors of seasonality. Our design of how we raised our animals was cyclical, with each component connected to the next. The result of this type of agriculture was that the carbon was in situ, never leaving the ground, but instead building from place and allowing the natural cycles of birth, growth, death, and decay to regenerate the pastures. The health of the soil flourished as a result and was directly linked to the health of our family.
My daughter Quill, back from feeding her chickens, is reciting the seven sacred principles. She relates the most with Wowa unsi-la, or maybe she just likes saying it, the way it rolls off her tongue like a song. The phrase means “caring for all living creatures,” and is meant to ensure that each interaction with all the species is beneficial to that species. I explained to Quill that it is like when she is gathering branches to make a fairy crown, and she must first observe and ask the tree if she can harvest its branches, then listen to the tree to see if she gets a response. If the branch is important for the tree to bear fruit then she needs to leave the branch. If the branch should be removed to let in more light to the center of the tree then she should do her part in caring for that tree and remove the branch. Quill recited the word like a chant, “Wo-wa unsi-la, caring for all living things,” skipping and singing with her face raised up to the sky like a wolf pup. Earlier, over the dinner table, we each recited these attributes and reflected on how we can improve and how we did throughout the day on truly encompassing the teachings. When Larry built a bow out of a limb on a bay tree earlier in the day, he showed Wo-bli-he-cha: he was engaged in every moment with pure satisfaction in his process. The last sacred attribute, Wi-co-za-ni, is the sacred state of health, which often begins in the mind and positive thinking, one which we all strive for; however, it takes all of the other attributes to fall in place to achieve Wi-co-za-ni. The life we’ve created here on the ranch, holistic context in place, has created the conditions for all of those attributes to blossom inside each of us.
Earlier in the day, the first thing I did was to jog out to the front of the ranch where the dairy cows were in their grazing pasture to bring them in for milking. Nearly a mile on uneven terrain, skirting around brush and jumping over ravines, I paid attention to the life around me. Seeds clung to the tarweed plants, which were still green despite many dry months. I reached down to touch the soft seed of a thistle plant, smooth to the touch with a sheen that resembled silk. On a foggy summer morning the grasses are dry; however, we moved the cattle into a pasture with a high percentage of California oatgrass and purple needle grass, both native bunchgrasses that pull water up that is stored in the soil. The green plants provide the cows with much-needed protein later into the dry season. It is a longer walk to come in every day for milking, and the cows don’t always get the cue that their milking parlor awaits them.
Our dairy herd is larger now. Milk cows have come and gone, but Daisy, that first cow that Erik came home with, is still with the herd. I found her and Annabelle, the other Jersey, grazing with the two lively Guernsey heifers. With coats of light brown, like the color of oak furniture, with white blotches, the Guernsey cows, Bluebell and Buttercup, each have a distinct pattern displaying their own identity. Daisy, ten years old, was starting to show her age. At the back of the group she walked slowly, carefully conserving her energy, traveling along the contour of the hill, not meandering from her path.
Walking back with the four ladies, the herder instinct was awoken in my brain. As I walked behind the small group of hoofed megafauna, bringing them in to be milked—an act that humans began over ten thousand years ago with the domestication of livestock—my body felt the connection to the earth and emotions of happiness overcame me.
In the faint light of dawn, a coyote sounded a barking howl in the distance. I quickened my step. There were newborn calves in the pasture where the coyote was sounding the loud bark. I heard our two dogs, Luta and Nuka, barking from the safety of the barnyard in response to the coyote. The two Australian shepherds, who stand slightly smaller than a coyote, have come to know they are no match for their wild cousin. Entering the barnyard, Suzanna asked if she should go up on the four-wheeler and chase away the coyote. She saw the calves running. My step quickened to a run. I told her I would go and I began to run up the steep incline above our house toward the sound of the coyote. I climbed over the split redwood fence that delineates our little patch of human inhabitancy and I entered into the wild grasslands. The coyote continued to sound a barking howl, loud and echoing through the rolling grassy hills.
The hill in front of me blocked my view of the animal, but as I reached the apex I saw her standing there. She was facing east, barking and howling loudly, not disturbed at first by my presence. The calves were not running in fear; they were frolicking amongst the moms, playfully. The dogs did not follow me, most likely because they did not want to start a squabble over territory. Now less than twenty yards away, I approached to see how close the coyote would let me get. Obviously her attention was turned in a different direction. Possibly she was protecting her den, which sat in the southern-facing eucalyptus canyon above our house. We had tracked the den site and at times found pups’ chew toys adorning the entrance of the holes, slightly taller than they were wide, dug into the slope. It reminded me of the rendezvous site I found that day in the Idaho wilderness tracking wolves. Even things that had been stolen from the barnyard, like work gloves, lay strewn and chewed close to the entrance. Maybe it was a way for the coyotes to show they were outsmarting our dogs—by stealing things from under their noses. It was the wrong time of year for pups, but the right time of year for breeding. If this was the alpha, she may have been reinforcing her hierarchy in order to dissuade other coyotes from breeding. The period of courtship amongst coyotes, called proestrus, is the longest of any canine, signifying that the bond between the alpha pair is especially important (Elbroch and Rinehart 2011).
The coyote turned and slowly trotted, stopping in the middle of the pasture. The mother cows paid little attention to the coyote as they chewed the dry grasses. Nuka apprehensively appeared by my side as Suzanna walked up the hill to join me. Just as they arrived, the coyote scratched the ground with all four feet. Left rear foot timed with right front foot and right rear foot timed with left front, she scratched the grass, kicking up some dirt. She continued to bark and howl, and then journeyed to the other side of the pasture, briefly glancing back at us. Was she communicating territory or possibly calling out to a mate to elicit breeding? The location she chose to scratch and leave scent from the scent glands between her toes was a prominent place on a small hill next to the intersection of the ranch road and the straight trail she traveled toward the eucalyptus trees.
I often track the coyotes in the silt of the ranch road; the substrate portrays every detail of the wild canines’ tracks, the wrinkles in the pad and the sharp pricks of the claws. Scat also lines the ranch road and accumulates at the top of the hill in a large latrine. One day Larry and I counted twenty scats from coyotes of all different ages. Living in a place where there are no longer wolves, I often turn to the coyote, as their closest relative. I have tracked coyote in the middle of cities and on edges of suburban neighborhoods. It reminds me that I do not need to be deep in the wilderness to find that connection to the wild. The coyotes travel the edges, they take part in the cycle of life and death. They can be a symbol of that wild that still remains no matter how much humans have paved over their homes and bulldozed the fragments of habitat amongst the high-rises.
As I head back to the milking parlor I contemplate our role as regenerative ranchers. Things are out of balance. Many of the interactions that once kept the grasslands healthy, the large predators that moved the herds of prey that in turn impacted the health of the plants, the songbirds, and all life on the prairie, are now gone. As I learned from the wolf, it is my time now to tend to my family as nature tends to hers. I have the responsibility to feed my children and nurture the wild they have inside. I work to retain and protect wild spaces and wild patterns within us and around us, making space for the wildness we and all our kin need to survive and thrive.
No matter where in the world you are, you can find these three things to track—and doing so will get you in tune with the rhythms and behaviors of the wildlife near you. Remember that tracking is about noticing signs and asking questions; it can take a long time before answers start coming to you. Keep your senses and your mind open!
PREDATOR 
Research which predators live in your area. Some of those predators for me are coyotes, mountain lions, grey foxes, and birds of prey; in your neighborhood you may find skunks, raccoons, bobcats, wolves, bears, or river otters. Even in New York City, there are hawks in the skies and coyotes in Central Park.
Then narrow down your hunt: Do you know whether your predator prefers to be near water, and is there a river, lake, or maybe a hidden spring in your area?
Look for trails. Often it is difficult to see the tracks, because of the soft pads of the toes and heel, unless the trails go by a mud puddle or the bank of a stream. When you look around you will begin to see trails that are worn in that may cross or travel along the human trails. You might find scat along those trails, as a territorial scent marking. Follow those trails to see where they lead you and what clues you pick up along the way.
Often the predator is the keystone species of an area. They are the ones that help keep the whole ecological system together, and without that keystone predator, things would look different. Plants might get overgrazed and certain life would disappear altogether. So when you track a predator, you are also tracking the whole interconnected web of life, such as the smallest insect that may depend on remains of the carcasses that the predator leaves behind.
PREY
What does your area’s predator eat? Are there certain things that are abundant, like voles, squirrels, or mice that both the ground and aerial predators are feasting on? Are there larger prey animals such as deer in your area?
Deer live in a variety of habitat, from the mountains to the cities. They can be one of the most rewarding animals to track. Their cloven hooves make sharp lines in the shape of a heart, and at times you can see the dewclaws, two smaller indents, just behind the hoof. If you find a deer track, trace your fingers along the edge of the track, getting to know the size and shape. Feel the edges and then feel how deep the tracks sink in. Then look ahead on the trail and try to find another track about eighteen to twenty-six inches in front of the one you are feeling. See how many tracks you can find and where the trail will lead you. Start to notice other signs such as deer droppings, antler rubs on branches, or evidence of feeding on nearby plants.
PLANTS
Look up close to any patch of plants and you’ll likely find that some of them have been bitten. Does it look like they were torn or clipped? Deer only have bottom incisors, so they leave the plants rough and torn. Rabbits, on the other hand, have sharp top and bottom incisors, leaving the plants they eat clean and at a 45 degree angle, almost like it has been cut with a knife. Once you get to know the plants and trees in your area, find out when they produce fruit or nuts. When do the plum trees fruit? When do the acorns from the oak trees ripen? There will be certain times of year that all the herbivores are feasting on the abundant crop of fruit or nuts in a feeding frenzy. That is a good time to track the plants and find out what it looks like when a squirrel eats an acorn versus when a bird like a woodpecker or jay eats an acorn.
Once you have tracked a predator, a prey, and a plant then move on to finding more tracks. You can also put together a master list of local animals by using field guides and range maps. Start with listing all the mammals that are in your range. You can then move on to birds, plants, fungi, insects, reptiles, and amphibians. Getting to know your neighbors can help you to feel more at home yourself.