The circular hay fields are watered with a sprinkler system with long arms that sweep around the curves delivering water from an irrigation ditch.


I


n the winter months, the Hutchinson herd depends on hay: native grasses—mostly brome and timothy—and alfalfa. When the crop is ready to harvest, it will be mowed and gathered into bales weighing up to 800 pounds. “Right now we’re waiting to hay. We’re basically watching the grass grow,” Abby says, looking across the gleaming green fields. But the process is more complicated than that: the crop is sensitive to environmental factors; knowing when to cut and to bale it takes skill. The grass needs to grow high enough to last the herd through winter without drying out and losing nutrients—and it can’t be harvested wet because it won’t cure properly. “We have to strike a balance between ripe and rot- ten,” Abby says. To water the crop, the Hutchinson Ranch uses a combination of irrigation ditches and overhead sprinkler systems. Because the family’s ownership of the land stretches back nearly 150 years, the property has senior water rights—always a valuable asset in the arid West, but especially important as encroaching development places new demands on available resources.


Now 88 years old, Doc is the Hutchinson family patriarch. He retired several years ago, but can still be found out on


the ranch making visits to the gravesite of his late wife, Mary Sue Swallow Hutchinson. She’s buried among the pinyon-juniper forest above the hay fields, near the “grandma loop” where she liked to take her daily walks.


54 · LAND&PEOPLE · FALL/WINTER 2013


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