Monthly Archives: February 2016

Chia Sage Salvia columbariae

Posted on February 20, 2016 by John | Leave a comment

Dry Creek Running Red

Posted on February 19, 2016 by John | 3 comments

Somewhere upstream it rained hard on clay ground early Thursday morning, rainfall amounts varied drastically. We received 0.44” at the house. Two miles downstream received only 0.22”. Rain and hail three miles upstream amounted to 1.2” in this latest storm event. When the photo was taken around noon yesterday, Dry Creek was flowing at 28 cfs, a far cry from 542 cfs on January 31, 2016. No rain in the forecast until the end of this month.

According to El Niño experts, all the elements for a wet spring are still in place despite our dry and warmer than average February. Parts of California have fallen behind average rainfall amounts as the state hasn’t quite shaken the pattern set by four years of drought. Most of the Sierra snow below 7,000 feet that came at the end of January is gone with temperatures ranging in the mid-to-upper 70s this month.

What March and April will bring is anyone’s guess, but the current trend is dry. For those of us in the business of harvesting grass with cattle, it’s not so much about how much it rains, but when—timing is everything. Any accumulation of snow for Valley agricultural surface water users diminishes as we go forward with little or no significant increase in groundwater recharge.

At this point in time, El Niño has kept us alive, but hasn’t erased the impacts of four years of drought.

3 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged El Niño, weather

BLACK INK

Posted on February 18, 2016 by John | 5 comments

Crown on ice
waiting for a rain
in a water glass

for me and this
yellow pad
to storm black ink,

prolong spring
with fresh metaphors
for resilience.

5 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

Tagged Crown Reserve, poetry, rain, rainbow

SCORPIONWEED

Posted on February 17, 2016 by John | 2 comments

Delicate bloom unfurling early
to lower angles of a warmer sun
that has drawn the snakes out

into a tall forest of green grass.
The girls spray weeds around
the barns, gates and corrals,

clearing summer’s dry hideouts
where we will travel with work
on our minds—small firebreaks

for the house. We have grown
too old for curled surprises, for
adrenaline leaps that leave us crippled

instead of snakebit. Ingrained routine
that comes with bloom before
weeds go to seed, we look ahead

for some small advantage
in a world we can improve
for those who work closest to us.

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

Tagged bloom, snakes, spring, weed spraying, wildflowers

FEBRUARY SPRING

Posted on February 16, 2016 by John | Leave a comment

Common Brodiaea, February 13, 2016

Crayons in a child’s hands,
spring is eager to scribble color
upon a greening page,

blue skies without the gray
curlicue cloud-loads of rain—
or like an old woman wise

with too many pots on the fire,
hurried in aromatic steams
to feed us all at once

before summer takes over
our lives. Like cattle pausing
at the gate after trailing flakes

of hay, we are suspicious,
we are afraid supper’s over
before spring has been served

by our idle consideration
that swims in awe of a miracle
we crave the time to digest.

Valentine’s Day Branding

Posted on February 15, 2016 by John | 6 comments

No roses, no chocolates, we left Dry Creek early to make the 45 minute trek to Mankin Flat to brand Craig Ainley’s calves. We were in and out of the clouds all day long and made it off the hill just before dark. Robbin manned the ‘point and shoot’ on the way up and between vaccinations. Fine calves with the fine company of neighbors, but needless to say, no one went to town for a romantic dinner.

6 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Craig Ainely branding, Mankin Flat, Valentine's Day

California Jewelflower Caulanthus californicus

Posted on February 14, 2016 by John | 2 comments

Endangered Species Recovery Program

While gathering to brand last week, the girls and I noticed a wildflower we’ve never seen before. Identified from Calflora photos this morning, I learned that the California Jewelflower is listed by USA and California as ‘Rare and Endangered’. No sighting recorded before in this part of Tulare County. One must assume that that the seeds have been banked for years until our current weather conditions germinated them.

HOLD THE PHONE: misidentified, according to the Jepson manual. Jagged leaves and bristly hair on stems = Caulanthus coulteri, neither rare or endangered, but new to us.

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged California Jewelflower, Caulanthus californicus

FROM THE HEART

Posted on February 14, 2016 by John | 4 comments

Sonnets scribed throughout the ages
& verses penned on crumpled pages
declare the vagaries of the heart—
but we who write, how do we start
to shape those things into a line?
Could Robbin be my Valentine?

A catch-all, cure-all phrase at best,
a store-bought, hard-fought way to test
not only revenue from emotion,
or pocket change to renew devotion—
but a day for shy to offer sign,
ask: would you be my Valentine?

“What the hell’s it mean?” I pray.
Does it include what I want to say?
Or imitate the horndog’s sound,
or a spot for dreams to pulse and pound
or become a word to brand as “mine”?
“Now baby you’re my Valentine?”

Or a poet’s time to wax eternal
grace angelic drawn to abnormal
metamorphic gross proportions,
or worse yet, shallow contortions
comfort claims to be divine—
who’d really want a Valentine?

Yet through it all, you have acquired
my great respect. I have admired
the human being I know as you,
I know as nothing less than true—
& here I am at the bottom line:
would you be my Valentine?

I found this card in its original envelope on my desk this morning, postmarked February 13, 1995. Good friends for several years, I took a chance to declare an interest beyond friendship that Robbin confesses unsettled her at the time. Instead of a hallmark, it reads: ‘HOMEMADE IN A HELLUVA HURRY’.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, ROBBIN!!

4 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Valentine's Day 1995

Great Basin Revisited

Posted on February 13, 2016 by John | 5 comments

Robbin and I have been crossing the Great Basin from Tonopah to Carlin in January for twenty years, choosing the longer route to Elko instead of I-99 towards Sacramento congestion and Donner Pass. Once known as the World’s Loneliest Highway, going home we met only a couple of vehicles on Highway 278 towards Eureka, Monday morning February 1st, after Sunday’s storm.

Twenty years ago, everyone waved a passing hello when meeting a vehicle on these back roads, but the habit seems to have waned in the past few years. I never fail to wonder about the first wagon crossings, the weeks it took to overcome this high desert expanse, the people, their courage and endurance, as they made the trek. How many of us today would have done as well, invested the patience and dedication to get to a place, presumably California, that they’d never seen?