In some parts of California, the change of seasons can be so subtle, you could miss every sign, unless, of course, you know what to look for.
Novelist Judy Van der Veer knew all about the changing rhythms of rural southern California life, which she portrayed through the sensibilities of a young woman tending a small herd of cattle.
She could imagine the way the earth would smell when rain moistened the dust. Oak leaves and brown grass would be cleaned. The cows' coats would be washed too, and the hair on the end of their tails would fall in soft curls. Now the cows had a dusty smell, but after they were cleaned by rain and dried by wind and sun they would have a fresh smell, earthy and good. A warm smell that would make her think of the kindness of mother cows and the softness of spring calves.
The lives of her cows were much like the life of the hills. In spring when the grass was bright and wildflowers grew on the slopes, the cows' udders began to swell and new calves were dropped in the grass. Summer went quietly, and by fall, dropped seeds were hidden in the dust. Then the cows carried new lives in their wombs, and spring would come to them as it did to the hills. Their lives fitted so well into the rhythm of the seasons that the girl couldn't think of spring without thinking of calf time.
Judy Van der Veer's novel November Grass, set in the ranchlands east of San Diego, appeared in 1940.
Southern Californians are often starved for rain. But the quiet stillness that accompanies the waiting can bring its own reward.
In her haunting work of fiction November Grass, Judy Van der Veer describes an arid autumn in rural San Diego county and introduces a character who finds there the miracle of the web of life.
When she thought about how each small life feels itself the center of the universe—how sunshine, rain or food is good or bad, depending on each individual need, how certain times and conditions cause different meanings for each thing that lives—she was overwhelmed with wonder and despair at the way the world ends a thousand times a minute. If she crushed an insect the sun was blotted out, the stars fallen, the earth shattered—forever and ever the universe ceased to be for one atom of living.
Then she thought, for every time a particle of life broke out of an egg, crept from a cocoon, or pushed out of a womb, the pageantry of earth and sun, moon and stars, color and sound and scent and feeling was created again.
November Grass was Judy Van der Veer's second novel. It was published in 1940.
Nobody could be more fascinated by animals than novelist Judy Van der Veer, especially the animals she observed on her southern California ranch.
In The River Pasture, Van Der Veer creates a memorable character, a pinto colt named Patches who didn't get along with horses but seemed sweetly beguiled by puppies.
When Minnie, the bird dog, had puppies every animal on the place was interested. We fixed a nursery for her in the woodshed and even Wucky would hang about the door, all a-twitter. . . .
It was at this stage that Patches himself began to take an active interest in the puppies. I looked out of a window and held my breath to see two pups between his front hoofs and a third gayly swinging on his tail. I shut my eyes expecting to hear agonizing yelps of pups being trampled and kicked. When I opened by eyes, Patches had gravely picked one up by its paw and was gently waving it around in the air. Carefully he put it down again, picked his hoofs slowly up from among them all and with puppies merrily barking and snapping at his heels, wandered off to graze.
The River Pasture, Judy Van Der Veer's first book, appeared in 1936.
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