The Magic Animal Farm

The Magic Animal Farm

The year was 1974, and Carolyn heard about a new food co-op opening in Naturita, Colorado, just five miles down the hill from our home in Nucla. We went to see what was there, and that’s when we first found our friends from the Magic Animal Farm.

We joined the co-op, which was a pretty good deal. With the dues we all paid in, they would order food in bulk at discount wholesale prices, and then we could buy a smaller portion at very low prices. They had lots of whole grains, beans of all kinds, pasta, and nuts, dried fruit and dehydrated vegetables. All were easy to store without refrigeration, and we had access to food not found in local stores.

The co-op was operated by several young people, led by a man of about thirty years, who said his name was Pyote Coyote when I asked. On further query, his wife’s name was Red Cedar Woman, and they all lived on an isolated ranch in an almost inaccessible valley about thirty miles north of town. The valley was actually a box canyon called Roc Creek canyon. The ranch was a hippie commune called The Magic Animal Farm.

They were attempting to live without having to go to work at a job everyday, but raise their own food on the farm, and live on this world in a sustainable way. I think they started the food co-op as a concession to the need to pay taxes on the property. Otherwise, they tried not to have to use money if possible.

In the corrupt and cynical world of today, it’s hard to imagine such innocence, but during the sixties and seventies it was not an uncommon idea. I soon became good friends with Pyote, and we spent many hours in long philosophical discussions on politics, ethics, economics, and auto mechanics. He, as well as I, had experience in fixing cars.

Carolyn and our daughter Darlene and I moved to Colorado when I found a job in a coal fired generation plant there as a Mechanic/Machinist. As it was a union plant, the pay and benefits were excellent, but even more importantly, the work was varied and challenging. Being close to no large city, we had to make a lot of our own tools and parts, and I got to design and construct things, and use my college engineering skills, even though I didn’t graduate with a degree.

It was not many days later that on a warm summer day we all drove up to see the farm in our little red Toyota Corolla station wagon. By carefully steering through the rocks and charging up the steeper hills, we got the car all the way into the ranch. The entrance road was a narrow unpaved, ungraded track about five miles off the highway.  Sheer red sandstone cliffs bordered the road at the mouth of the canyon, and the creek and the road just barely fit in the canyon. There was no other route into the ranch, as the red cliffs surrounded the canyon.

Before we got to the ranch, we passed a trail leading off up a steep hill to the north. That track led to the Rajah mine, which was reputed to be the source of the ore from which Madam Curie discovered Radium. That area of Colorado and Utah is still dotted with many uranium mines which operated until the seventies, when cheaper imported uranium from Africa forced most local mines to close.

When we arrived at the ranch house, we were warmly greeted by the whole tribe, especially as I brought a case of beer with me. They offered to share some “weed” but I told them I didn’t smoke. I figure I breath enough bad stuff just working in a coal burning power plant. 

We got a tour of the house and garden, and walked over to the creek to admire the beauty of this place. They said the creek was fed from springs at the upper end on the valley and ran year around. I suggested they might use it to generate electricity, and offered to do a feasibility study on how much power we could get from that creek.

There was no electric power to the ranch at all, and solar panels, if available, would have been prohibitively expensive back in those days. They heated the house in winter with a wood stove, and did all the cooking with wood, too. They boiled water from the creek for drinking, since there was a worry about “beaver fever” contamination in the creek water.

Lighting at night was with kerosene lanterns, which had to be cleaned and trimmed every day just as the pioneers did a hundred years before.

We stayed until the evening, and we all sat around a big bonfire on logs, talking and laughing and enjoying ourselves immensely. We thought it was a wonderful escape from the demands of civilization. The motto was “Back to the Earth!”

In the winter of ’74/’75 we attempted to drive into the ranch after a snow storm had laid down several inches of snow. By chaining up we were able to get in alright, and of course they were happy to see the case of beer I brought as a gift. 

We stayed until nearly sundown, and I thought we ought to get back before it got dark. But the car wouldn’t start. It cranked OK, but no gasoline came from the tank, even though it was half full. We both agreed some water must have gotten in the fuel line and froze as I slid through the snow.

Since we had no other option, we were glad when they invited us to stay the night. Pyote had built rough but rugged wooden racks on two walls and there was plenty of extra space for all four of us. We not only brought our daughter, we had our baby son Wesley with us, too.

I don’t know what the original room was, but in one large bedroom there were four of us, plus Pyote and Red Cedar Woman with their young daughter (I have forgotten her name) and another hippie who went by the name Two Eagles.

Pyote Coyote and Red Cedar Woman shared one bunk, and Carolyn and I shared another. The lamps had been snuffed out and the inky blackness of night far from any city or town enveloped us. 

It was not long until we heard rhythmic moans of pleasure coming from the bunk with Pyote and his wife. Carolyn and I, not to be outdone, soon decided to join the chorus and the room was full of pleasant sounds. As in the olden days, when most families lived in one room cabins, the kids were left to wonder what all the noise was about. If they were old enough to know, it didn’t hurt them to hear the happy sounds, I guess.

In the morning the car still would not start, so we decided to hike out to the highway with the kids and hitchhike home. The temperature was 4º F. and the gas line was not going to thaw that day. Even so, we saw Two Eagles sitting naked in the snow in lotus position with hands on his knees in meditation. There’s some real religion for you!

The snow was icy and slick and we picked our way carefully, looking for solid footing. I was carrying Wesley on my shoulders, holding his little hands in mine. We all were dressed warmly, with heavy coats or parkas. Wesley’s coat had a furry hood that kept his ears warm.

The morning was clear and cold, with tiny sparkles of ice crystals floating in the air, and the dry snow squeaking under our shoes. We managed to hike the five miles out, and were about 50 feet from the highway pavement when I lost my footing and went down, sitting hard on the ground and Wesley’s little chin hit the top of my head. I cussed and Wesley cried, but there wasn’t much else we could do at the moment. 

We walked south along side the highway toward Naturita not more than a quarter mile when we heard the sound of a diesel truck coming up behind us. It was a tanker truck with a load of chemicals headed for the uranium mill at Uravan. He knew we must be broke down some where nearby, and he stopped and let us all crowd in the cab with him. We got some scary, gut churning views of the river below the Ledge road above the Hanging Flume as the truck navigated the twisting curves just a few inches from the edge. He got to his destination in Uravan, and we found a phone and called our neighbor in Nucla to come pick us up.

For the next week I rode in with another worker at the plant. Most of my coworkers thought I was crazy when I told them the story of how my car got stranded at the Magic Animal Farm. Or maybe they thought I had been smoking something, although I hadn’t. Probably right the first time. Just crazy.

When the weekend arrived, Jim Johnson, a shift supervisor, offered to drive me back in to get the car. He had a Chevy pickup, just two wheel drive, but he was up for the adventure. Carolyn didn’t want to sit in the house alone so she came along as well. We got into the ranch easily, as Jim’s pickup had a lot of ground clearance and he could just charge straight at the hills.

As expected, the car still wouldn’t start, so we hooked the car to the pickup with a ten foot nylon choker we borrowed from the power plant, and he towed me home. That was not as easy as it sounds. Carolyn rode with him in his heated pickup cab, and I rode in the car, steering it behind the pickup tailgate. 

The road has lots of curves and hills, so I kept busy steering and braking as necessary to keep the car behind the pickup. One time I saw his brake lights flash and stabbed my brake pedal just as he got off the brakes and started zigzagging all over the road. It was all I could do to stay centered between his taillights. Then I saw the cows flashing past on both sides. I knew then that he had no choice but to get off the brakes and dodge cows on both sides of the road. We never touched one of them. We had a good laugh when we arrived back home, as he described glancing in the mirror and seeing me ducked down and cranking that steering wheel back and forth like mad!

Later that following week I heated the gas tank and fuel line with a hair dryer and added some alcohol to the gas tank to get rid of the water in the tank and got the little Toyota running again. Within the month we went to Grand Junction to the Toyota dealer there and bought a new Toyota Landcruiser. We figure if that little Corolla was that tough, just think where we could go with a vehicle made for off roading.

The next summer my mother came to visit us from California, and I remembered the stories she told about growing up on a farm a couple of miles southwest of Merced, California, on Gove Road, before the REA (Rural Electrification Administration), and living pretty much as the hippies did on the Magic Animal Farm. So we all climbed into the new Landcruiser and took Mom up to visit. 

She was fascinated to relive her childhood, I think, and appreciate the modern conveniences we have now. She still remembered heating water on the side of the wood stove, and trimming the wicks, polishing the glass and filling the reservoirs in the lanterns for nightfall.

She admired a large green shrub near the house, and said aloud that she wished she had one in her yard like that. We had to gently tell her that she probably wouldn’t want a plant like that one in her yard. Even though it was pretty, in California it would be highly illegal. In Colorado, not so much, if you weren’t selling it. Having less than one ounce was just a misdemeanor with a small fine. 

Sometimes the local sheriff would drop in the Natural Foods Co-op, open the cabinet and weight the bag in his hand to see if there was a large amount of pot there. Since the small bag was just for Pyote and not being sold, he just closed the door, wished them a good day, and left.

Pyote liked to boast of the psychedelics he had consumed in his lifetime. He said he had over three hundred LSD trips, and numerous other trips with mushrooms, peyote cacti, and other such chemical mind enhancers. He swore that it didn’t hurt your mind, but opened it and expanded your thinking and changed your conception of the world around you in a good way. 

I never wanted to take the risk. I kind of liked my brain the way it came. I have always thought the proper way to expand your thinking was to read a lot of books. I still think that.

Early that spring Red Cedar Woman became pregnant. She was happy and proud, and enjoyed showering in the nude under a tank of warm water in a tree outside the house. When the weather allowed, clothing was optional at the Magic Animal Farm.

Later in the fall, in the afternoon, one of the hippies showed up at the Norwood Clinic fifty miles south of the Magic Animal Farm. He told Dr. John Peters that a girl was having trouble delivering a baby and needed help immediately. The doctor closed the clinic, got in his old black pickup truck, and following directions from the hippie, drove back into the canyon to the ranch house. 

It was completely dark when they arrived at the house, and they had all the kerosene lanterns lit in the kitchen, where Red Cedar Woman was laying on the large table on a blanket. Dr. Peters made sure there was plenty of boiled water available, and in a few hours had delivered a healthy little baby girl. When all were settled and comfortable, Pyote nervously asked the doctor what they owed him.

“I hear you don’t believe in money!” said Dr. Peters.

“We are trying to do without it!” said Pyote.

“Well, that’s good!” Dr. Peters said. “What do you have to trade?”

Pyote said, “We just harvested some new potatoes today. Would that do?”

“Sure, I’d like about ten pounds, if you have them.”

The potatoes were soon bagged and loaded into the pickup. As the sun came up, Dr. Peters drove back home to Norwood, satisfied with a night's job well done.

We lost track of the Magic Animal Farm after we moved to Nevada to take a job in another power plant, but we heard it had broken up over finances, either taxes or alimony from Pyote’s first wife. Never knew for sure. 

When I next saw Pyote again, on a visit back to Colorado, he was the mayor of the town of Naturita and working as a mechanic in the town of Nucla. Red Cedar Woman had left him and took the kids, and I don’t have any idea where the Magic Animals are today.

It still makes me sad to think about it. Sort of a little paradise lost—lost to the ages.