June 22, 2025
To turn off Grizzly Island Road south of Suisun City and onto the dirt road leading to Rush Ranch Open Space is to leave behind all things 2025. This includes occasionally hair-raising or backed-up traffic on Highway 12, gas stations and fast-food restaurants, along with bland suburban housing and perhaps distressing news seeping out of the car radio.
One can get away from all that at the Get The Rush! event, free and open to the public on the third Saturday each month, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event offers a series of fun activities for families and individuals seeking something out of the ordinary, namely a sense of well-being and peace, in a bucolic setting a relatively short drive from anywhere in Solano County.
For at Rush Ranch, a 2,071-acre preserve overseen by Solano Land Trust, the road stretches past views of Mount Diablo, past signs on the left that read “Free Horse Manure,” to a copse of 60-foot eucalyptus that shade two dozen picnic benches near a parking lot also on the left. The air is ripe with the smell of a working Northern California ranch on a dry, warm day with a slight westerly breeze under a cloudless sky.
To the right is a horse stable with black-speckled white horses looking for the next tasty bunch of alfalfa hay. Next to the parking lot stands a three-story white-painted barn, a home to barn owls, swallows and aging farm equipment. Well beyond the barn are pathways to the marsh’s vast expanse of native plants found in brackish tidal marshes, among them saltgrass, pickleweed, and cattails that grow in the tidal estuary, the largest of its kind on the West Coast.
Shortly before noon, Esmeralda Velasquez of Suisun City arrived with her nephew Jaden Barry, 7, and daughter Melanie Velasquez, 5.
“I’m always seeking things for them to do after school,” said Velasquez, who visits the ranch once monthly. “Just to take a break and get them off TV.”
What could be better than TV on most given nights?
Metal artist and blacksmith Paul Corning stood near a glowing forge, where he shaped all kinds of handy around-the-home items and tools from repurposed metal. To the right of the blacksmith shop is a cabin-size 1930s Sears Roebuck catalog kit-built house that serves as an interpretive museum with displays of native animals seen and heard in the area.
On its walls are photos and silhouettes of Rush family members dating to the 19th and 20th centuries, Hiram Rush (1810-1869) to Annabelle (1894-1983). Within glass cases are short histories of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation and the Patwin tribe, the area’s first settlers, and a sign with illustrative block prints and wording that reads “Rush Ranch … Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard,” a quote attributed to Standing Bear.
Further back in the house is a gift shop with gift cards, local honey, photos, ranch memorabilia for sale, and free trail maps and flyers about upcoming events, such as Country Night at Rush Ranch on July 26, featuring Myriah Monet and The Little Fridays and Tom Drinnon, an outdoor concert, with food trucks, vendors, wine and beer and line dancing. Tickets, $39 for adults and $10 for kids, are available at solanolandtrust.org.
For those inclined to ride rather than walk on the ranch trails, Duke and Jack, 2,500-pound white French draft horses ages 12 and 11, respectively, were ready to pull passengers on a flat, open-air carriage with cushy seats, a wheeled rig belonging to Access-Adventure. Cotati rancher David Vasquez, owner of WineCountyWeddingCarriages.com with wife Julie, gently told Duke and Jack to make tracks.
From time to time, Vasquez handed the reins to Roger Roemer of Vallejo, who, wearing a burgundy Access Adventure T-shirt, was learning the ABCs of working a team of horses over the trails’ bumps and humps, rattling the carriage’s steel frame.
Access Adventure, with a motto of “Harnessing Hope and Healing,” has a singular mission: to enrich the lives of people with disabilities and underserved community members by providing outdoor recreation, open space access, education and therapy, “through a working partnership with horses.” Michael Muir is the director and the program seeks volunteers. For more information, visit www.access-adventure.org or telephone Tom Muehleisen at 707-439-5264 or Sherry Patterson at 614-507-9648.
Rush Ranch’s 2025 star-viewing nights, at 8:30 p.m. June 27 and July 25; at 8 p.m. Aug. 22; and 7:30 p.m. Sept. 19. Astronomy discussions will be offered, telescopes will be provided for everyone’s viewing, but anyone with their own telescopes or binoculars may bring them. To protect the vision of viewers, participants should cover their flashlights and latecomers should dim their headlights. For more information, send an email to jonpannier@aol.com.