Richard Rileys pasture, ca 1975

Richard Riley's pasture, East Valley, circa 1975. I think this was taken from the horseshoe curve up the road from Riley's house.

There aren't any dairy's left in East Valley or any of the surrounding valleys. When these pictures were taken there were five working dairies in East Valley if we include the one out of the valley but on East Valley Rd. It was the second largest dairy in the county. They milked about 150 cows. There was also a guy who raised and sold polled Herefords in the valley. Some folks from Monterey, CA, bought his place after he died and tried to dairy there. The place had a flat (i.e., WAY out of date and difficult to work in) milking parlor. At one time or another I juiced cows at all of these dairies (except Riley's) and more in other valleys and the surrounding area. The Riley's were Mormon and basically couldn't be bothered with us unless they wanted the apples from Lucky Mud or something else to
serve their nutball church. Oh no, did I say that out loud?

It's interesting that the Riley family included Viola Slayton, wife of Will Slayton, the most serious atheist I personally have ever known. (That includes my Zade and my mom. Objectively, I think Horace was more the waffler.) Will was also a serious prohibition era bootlegger (they were already married), and an amazing individual in general.

Vi Slayton was born at the property later owned by Nancy and Sebastian and called Pilgrim Farm. There are some photos of their place elsewhere on my page thingy. :)