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In California’s Napa Valley, poet Jane Mead managed her family ranch for 15 years; after her 2019 death, her estate gave 1,318 acres to a land trust
After poet Jane Mead died in 2019, her estate gave her 1,318-acre Napa Valley ranch to a land trust, protecting rare plants and a wildlife corridor.
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Some people leave behind money. Others leave behind a ridge. When poet Jane Mead died in 2019 at 61, her estate donated her family ranch to a trust. According to the Land Trust of Napa County, the 1,318-acre Mead Ranch sits near Atlas Peak, above Yountville, in California’s Napa Valley. The group announced the gift on May 7, 2024, and says the land is now permanently protected. The ranch is rich in rare plant species, and behind the gift is a poet who spent years taking care of this land.
A poet who chose the ranch
Jane Mead was a celebrated poet. Her obituary in the LA Times noted she had a literary career of more than 20 years and wrote five collections of poetry. She taught at several universities, including a tenured post as poet-in-residence at Wake Forest University. She then quit that job and moved to Napa to manage her family’s property. She ran the ranch for 15 years, according to the land trust. Many of her poems are about this country. In the LA Review of Books, USC professor of English and creative writing Carol Muske-Dukes wrote that Mead Ranch remained central to Mead’s experience as a poet. One poem of hers published in The New Yorker shows her feeling for the land.
Rare plants and rare pools
Doug Parker, the land trust’s CEO, said the property has great importance regarding the protection of Napa’s unique biodiversity. One such rare plant is Mead’s owl’s clover, a wildflower found exclusively at Mead Ranch and one other nearby site. This plant has been named after the Mead family. Another is the few-flowered navarretia, a federally listed endangered plant known only from Lake and Napa counties.
The ranch is also home to Napa bluecurls, a newly described species based on the Mead Ranch population. Two other plants, the holly-leaved ceanothus and narrow-anthered brodiaea, are both on the California Native Plant Society’s endangered plant list. Vernal pools, shallow pools that fill with water part of the year, are also features of the property. Botanist Jake Ruygt, who discovered Mead's owl's clover, says they are the most species-diverse of any pool systems remaining in the county.
Why a connected ridge matters
The ranch is also in a key location. It’s near the Walt Ranch, a 2,300-acre property protected in 2023, and the land trust’s 1,380-acre Sutro Preserve. Parker said protecting Mead Ranch is a key step toward a continuous corridor of protected land along the ridge on the east side of Napa Valley. The corridor will start at the Robert Louis Stevenson State Park and go all the way to American Canyon. Animals need space to move around.
A 2022 study in Science mapped the areas where mammals might move between protected areas. A University of Colorado Boulder summary of the research noted that many key areas for wildlife survival remain unconnected. The researchers also found that around 70 percent of the critical areas for animal movement overlap with places already considered valuable for biodiversity. This study looked at the entire world, not just Napa. And yet it shows the importance of connecting protected land.
A gift for the next generation
Soon after Mead was diagnosed with cancer, she decided to protect the property for good. Parker said Mead wanted to protect rare species on the land and its role in a wildlife corridor. She also hoped that future generations, especially children, could learn about nature and why it needs to be protected. From the ridge, you can see across Napa Valley and on to San Francisco. The land trust says access to the Mead Ranch Preserve is by permission only, through guided hikes they organize. For years, Mead wrote about this place. Now the place itself is protected, too.
