Monthly Archives: November 2016

WEATHER CHANGE

Posted on November 9, 2016 by John | 4 comments

I turn away, blinded by November’s
first light, Redbud hearts enflamed
with last season’s feed on green

burning yellows between dark shadows
with the news, with disbelief.
I retreat to calm counsel with cattle:

scattered pairs, calves fresh with life
finding legs to fly—buck and run
figure-eights without direction always

circling back, showing off for mom.
We will work the heifers anyway—
give them everything we can

to make them attractive to Wagyu,
their first bulls. And we will wait,
as we always do, for rainy days.

4 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016

Tagged Calves, cows, photography, poetry, politics, rain, weather

DOES-IN-WAITING

Posted on November 8, 2016 by John | Leave a comment

Hide-outs saved for sane
discussions, always listening
between short sentences

for advances within the dry
and brittle skeletons of spring—
we could forever be nervous

deer on the rebound, come back
to ricochet within a shrinking
wild that we have helped consume.

On the outskirts, perhaps
we feel it now approaching, wind
the scent of human arrogance

surrounding us, that we succumb to
out of necessity knowing
we’re headed in the wrong direction.

UNTAMED SILENCE

Posted on November 7, 2016 by John | 1 comment

Heading into winter, black cows yet fat
sucking calves—damp, thick-piled green after rain—
everyone is clean and shiny off the hill, parading
to water early to laze in the shade. Pages

of poetry shuffle across a desk messy with business,
an untitled collection scattered and spread,
collected and clipped faraway in my head
from our family of cows, from short remarks:

our song of words and phrases overflowing
with the water troughs at Windmill Spring,
spilling too spontaneously to require editing.
We needed to collaborate, to escape the loud

and demanding devils too close to home.
In this place, we are blessed with native eyes
and forgotten tongues—where we can relate
long poems in the luxury of untamed silence.

1 Comment

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

Tagged Calves, cows, Paregien Ranch, photography, poetry, weather

Turning Green

Posted on November 6, 2016 by John | 3 comments

As recollections fade, I’m careful not to claim the recent as the biggest or the best of anything, but this past week’s germination of grass is as thick as any I can recall. How well it will endure the above-average temperatures predicted to push 80 degrees for the next ten days remains to be seen—no rain in sight.

Yesterday, Robbin and I made the Kubota trip to the Paregien Ranch with salt, mineral and the last protein lick until next summer while checking the cows, calves, and the rain gauge: 1.44”. More like spring than fall, our new green grass, even at a higher elevation of 2,200 feet, has begun to usurp our ample old feed. Cow numbers light due to the heavy culling during the drought, we haven’t had to supplement these cows with alfalfa yet this year—a good thing. It will take two or three ‘normal’ seasons before we get our cow numbers close to a sustainable capacity again, unwilling to buy non-native cows that take at least two years to finally acclimate to this ranch and cycle regularly.

Checking cattle once a week, the Kubota has become so familiar on the Paregien Ranch that wildlife are seldom startled. With tall feed and cover, we haven’t seen many deer in the past six months. It was reassuring to see that the Blacktail buck above had survived hunting season, now in rut and somewhat oblivious to our presence. With a doe and fawn grazing acorns, he was more content to rest in the shade than leave.

Early mornings cool and talking firewood earlier in the week, we came off the hill with a load of dry Manzanita.

3 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged cattle, Paregien Ranch, photography, weather, wildlife

GRASS

Posted on November 5, 2016 by John | 3 comments

Within a week of late October rains, a forest
of green blades twisting, chasing warm
golden light between canyon horizons,

reaching while we sleep to a waxing moon
sailing south across black starlit seas—
a germination thick as hair on a dog’s back.

Hard clay turned soft underfoot, under cloven
hooves, out of the bleached and brittle rubble
of last year’s feed, a spreading miracle of green

as the earth stirs with another birth of grass.
And we are tied to it, mentally shackled
and physically restrained to work within her

moody generosity, daring not with word
or thought to piss her off—we have our gods
and goddesses we adore, stealing glimpses

every chance we get outside to pause
and praise them. All our totems, the bird
and animal people of the Yokuts know

our names, know our habits, show us the way
this canyon was designed to support life,
here and beyond us, with a crop of grass.

Weekly Photo Challenge: “Chaos”

3 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

Tagged birds, cattle, grass, photography, poetry, rain, water, weather, weekly-photo-challenge, wildlife, Yokuts

Ranch Journal: November 1, 2016

Posted on November 4, 2016 by John | 1 comment

A dark day after over an inch of rain, Terri and Lee feed the replacement heifers before the Wagyu bulls arrive next month. Already dated, this photograph doesn’t show the green that has spread across the damp ground in the past three days. Temperatures forecast for the next ten days are in the mid-to-high-70s—perfect growing weather for our native grasses. Already, our first-calf heifers are leaving our flatter feeding grounds for the hillsides in search of green grass tall enough to bite, steep ground softer now to climb and graze a little dry feed with the new.

Shorter days stuck in the low-50s, chilly mornings linger as both man and beast seem slower to get started, much of the pressure off after four days of rain and a thick germination of seed. Robbin and I are already talking firewood after we check the cows and calves on the Paregien Ranch, a Kubota load to augment the leftovers of last year’s stack, kept short to discourage rattlesnakes around the house. We’re ready, I think, to face whatever weather we get this winter, hoping always for well-timed rains.