It’s chilly in the morning (40s), foggy in the Valley after the 1.81” we received from the tail of the Bomb Cyclone earlier this week. Normally, the ridge between Dry Creek and Antelope Valley keeps the fog out, allowing more sunshine for our fresh cotyledons. What a beautiful day, the sycamores are turning as winter knocks on the door.
We’ve been feeding lots of alfalfa trying to keep the cows with calves and replacement heifers in shape enough to cycle before breeding. We’re in the process of getting the bulls out now. With no forecast rains, we’ll begin branding soon.
Exeter, California mural painted by Morgan McCall and Mitchell-Veyna in 1996
He ain't got no loan Cant grow no corn He ain't got no loan - Levon Helm (“Poor Old Dirt Farmer”)
A cattlemen’s get-together, a fund-raising dinner—awards and not-so-silent auctions at the end of summer before the calves come,
to rub shoulders with the neighbors who’ve gotten older or by surprise disappeared altogether
like the uneven ground shrinking for grazing cattle and our flat ground sinking with too much pumping on the same old cow.
The banks are nervous with farm ground worth half of what it was without water to plant and raise a crop to feed us and pay the growing costs (plus taxes and interest)
and threaten to foreclose on homesteads with row crops or orchards in piles that have become bare ground to develop, for speculators to make small fortunes for corporate investors.
Mom and Pop have moved to town, following the kids the land couldn’t support—
but it’ll be so much easier for everyone to shop for third world groceries at the Wall Street outlets.
drycrikjournal 