Monthly Archives: January 2014

No Snow in the Sierras

Posted on January 17, 2014 by | 3 comments
December 31, 2013

December 31, 2013

With no improvement in the Sierra snowpack in the month of January, and virtually no storms in sight, prospects for California agriculture take an ugly shape. Best case scenario: past the time of year when the snowpack normally freezes for a slow runoff, a prolonged surface water run to Valley farmers is unlikely even if it does rain and snow in amounts to offset the dry, first half of our rainy season. Now one must entertain the real possibility of more stormless skies and more warm weather. With record-breaking high temperatures for January, San Joaquin Valley orchards are confused and trying to bloom. With each day it does not rain, the richest agricultural region in the world comes closer to becoming the new Dust Bowl, adversely impacting everyone.

                        Overview: “Artists of the Great Western Divide” (2010)

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She’s Got Twins

Posted on January 17, 2014 by | 4 comments

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Brought down from the Paregien Ranch before the branding as we reduced numbers in our upper country, we knew she was close. I noticed the fresh black white-faced calf off by itself most of Wednesday, worried that it was abandoned. Yesterday when we fed, she surprised us with twins, having collected them both. I’m guessing a Hereford father.

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Plenty of milk, now we’ll see if she can raise them.

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NAKED NOW

Posted on January 16, 2014 by | 3 comments

Out there in the dark, they move
between trees, shadowless
to get a count while we sleep—

all the natives, man and beast alike
making livings here before our time—
before we become one of them

to measure progress by. In dreams
they come and go, offer news
from the past, tempt us once more

to stay a course they could not endure.
With no grass to hide their track,
they rise to the surface of this bare dirt.

You can see everywhere they’ve been,
where hard times changed their minds.
We’re naked now, almost abandoned.

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Posted in Poems 2014

Out in California

Posted on January 16, 2014 by | 3 comments
Sulphur & 17, 2014

Sulphur & 17, 2014

It’s all new ground, this branding in the dry—even though Robbin rigged and ran a sprinkler from a spring-filled tank the day before to keep the dust down. Conditions were delightful. Still feeding everyday, but wearing down as we and our neighbors try to get a few calves marked as we go. It’s time, a month later than normal. Naturally, the calves are lighter, not the big and bloomy kind that draw compliments or test the ground crew.

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Age and youth, the cowboy dream alive and realized in the same pen, at the same moment, under perhaps the worst circumstances of weather to date in California. Surviving the Drought of 1977 early in my career gave me confidence during the many dry years since, but these historical dry times will impact the future for man and beast for years to come. Busy with the basics, we have yet to imagine some of these far-reaching impacts.

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But it’s reassuring to be in the company of neighbors, all of us in the same boat with the same decisions to make: whether to buy more hay or sell more cows—usually both that can’t last forever. Most our brandings roll ‘old-people slow’, just right for us and a few throwback kids that might want this kind of life. What they don’t know, of course, is that they invigorate and inspire us, help keep us going, make it all the more worthwhile.

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Calves Need Hay Too

Posted on January 15, 2014 by | Leave a comment

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Calculating how much alfalfa to leave in a pasture, we have to include the growing appetites of calves. Though the Wagyu X calves above may not know the taste of green grass, they know the sound of the hay truck, as do the calves everywhere. Branding a little bunch in Greasy this morning, culling cows as we go.

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DECLARATION

Posted on January 14, 2014 by | 1 comment

The Governor has come with a mouthful of marbles,
but no Demosthenes, cornered before cameras
after meeting big farmers in dark back rooms,

eyes shift through closed doors, see San Francisco,
Santa Cruz. ‘Moonbeam’ in the 70s when he ran
with Ronstadt, he’s still undecided. Driest year

on record yet, it’s about the water that isn’t—
and who gets it, if he declares a drought. Playing
politics: pleasing people like cattle—who gets hay

little water irrigates. I am but dust on the window screen
to Pine Street, Exeter, 1958 when I shook his father’s hand,
watched California meet the future with accomplishment.

This is not poetry, nor a cry-baby rant. This is drought
no matter what we declare or who says it—lean
times when Mother Nature makes all the rules.

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Posted in Poems 2014

TO THESE HILLS

Posted on January 12, 2014 by | 8 comments

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In the end, it will not matter
to these bare hills—the dust
we rose, the hay we fed

to cows, thin calves trailing
never knowing green. Or
the cacophony of pleas

to separate gods prolonged
in empty canyons echoing
hoarse and raspy songs.

A sick and starving coyote came
to the house, hairless as the hills,
to lie down in a damp spot,

too weak to leave without help.
In the end, it will not matter
to these bare hills, slowly

decomposing once again, if
we stay or go. It is the cows
we cared about, trusting souls

we owed, obliged to living
on next to nothing—even still
it will not matter to these hills.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014

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WPC: Window

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Paregien Branding 2014

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Posted on January 11, 2014 by in Photographs

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Dust & Smoke: Paregien Branding 2014

Posted on January 11, 2014 by

This gallery contains 13 photos.

Each branding at the Paregien Ranch always seems unique. In years past, we’ve been snowed on, rained on, and in fog so thick we could barely see across the pen, each documented in the archives of this blog. This year, … Continue reading →

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Happy New Year

Posted on January 10, 2014 by | 5 comments

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While gathering yesterday to brand this morning, another oak tree at 2,400 feet snags a mylar balloon from some Valley celebration. Offensive, blasphemous, the Sierra foothills are littered with them. There ought to be a law, but then again, our landscape is littered with too many of those as well. Miles from the asphalt, they decompose eventually, it just takes time. Happy 2014!

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