Last Saturday, I went up to Louie’s Place in La Grange to meet Todd Sill. Sill had been trying to explain irrigation on the AB La Grange Ranch when a tall cowboy showed up. Sill, himself a top hand, said the cowboy knew a lot about irrigation.

The AB Ranch has been a flashpoint for controversy since Larry Byrd was accused of using Modesto Irrigation District (MID) surface water out of district boundaries on July 8. Byrd sits on the MID Board of Directors. He’s partners on the AB with his brother Tim and Ty Angle.

After the tall cowboy sat down and ordered the prime rib sandwich, he said that you could read a lot about a ranch from its irrigation system.

“Let’s say you got a 250-horse pump,” said the cowboy, “That tells you can irrigate at least 250 acres. The formula is one horse per acre, depending on how flat the ground is. You get some hilly ground and you need a little over a horse, depending on how steep.”

Sill said that the electrical irrigation pump on the AB Ranch was a 250-horse pump. The AB irrigates about five-hundred total acres of almonds. Over a hundred of those acres are outside the Modesto Irrigation District. Sill also said that the diesel pump that pumped from one of the two deep wells on the ranch was much less powerful.

“During the heat of the summer, we’d have to run that pump four days just to irrigate the out-district ground and we’d still be a little short,” said Sill. “The electric pump could irrigate almost all the ground, in and out of district, on two ten-hour runs, even in the heat.”

Sill then pulled out a rough drawing of the irrigation system at the AB. The interesting thing about it to the tall cowboy was that it extended on to the out-of-district ground.

“It looks like from this drawing they planned to irrigate the out-of-district ground with MID surface water,” said the tall cowboy. “Why would they go to the expense of a 250-horse pump and laying the system outside the district unless they were planning to put MID water out there?”

Sill and the stranger then began discussing the intricacies of shutoff valves and checks, the kind of stuff us city folk have trouble following. Sill said it was important to understand that pumping rates and hours varied with the seasons.

“You don’t run the pumps as often in spring and fall,” said Sill.

Sill had “left” the AB Ranch early in 2023, after being accused of stealing diesel fuel. The theft charges were ludicrous, but Still decided he’d had enough of Larry Byrd’s senseless tirades anyway. He’d had a standing job offer at another ranch for several weeks. He decided to take it. He was at work at 5am the next morning.

I wanted to get instruction on the irrigation system before Sill headed into the Sierra to round up cattle that had been summering there. Previous to our discussion, I talked with both Sill and the tall cowboy about wrangling cattle in the Sierra.

“You’ve gotta understand something about them animals up there in them mountains,” said the tall cowboy. “They ain’t cattle. They’re deer in cow costumes.”

“It’s extreme sports up there, that’s for sure,” said Todd Sill.

“It gets cold enough you get a little frost, things get really scary,” said the tall cowboy. “Your horse starts slippin’ and slidin’ and you feel your life’s in danger at every turn.”

Seems like every time I talk to a cowboy up in those rolling hills of eastern Stanislaus County, I learn something new. Saturday, I came away from Louie’s Place thinking that Larry Byrd could do a lot to clear the air by leading a tour of the irrigation system on the AB Ranch.

Byrd’s use of groundwater on the AB has raised a lot questions ever since he said he runs “my deep well pumps almost daily and sometimes daily” back on July 8. Since then, Byrd has said he actually runs the pumps two or three times a week when it’s hot.

Todd Sill has said, and he stuck to it Saturday, that while he was on the AB Ranch, they “seldom” ran the deep well pumps.

Whatever the case, seems like Director Byrd could clear some of the clouds around his use of ground and surface water on the AB Ranch by showing his fellow MID directors his irrigation system. There would still be the problem of eyewitnesses to his pumping during the seven years — 2015-2022 — Todd Sill worked for Byrd on the AB, but the layout of that irrigation system could tell a pretty clear story, at least according to the tall cowboy.

While we’d been talking, Louie’s Place had begun filling with bikers. None were too rowdy or out of hand, but it seemed a good time for this city dude to head for the flatlands.

I left Louie’s Place thinking it wouldn’t be too hard for Director Byrd to show that irrigation system to MID Boardmembers, three of whom are farmers like Byrd himself. They’d understand the way things work at the AB Ranch better than us city folk anyway.

As for those deer in cow costumes, I’m told by yet another cowboy, a real old-timer, “It’s the solid truth. Rock solid.”