Monthly Archives: January 2026

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NATIVE HARMONIES: ranch poems

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=native+harmonies+dofflemyer

(Under construction)

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Posted on January 20, 2026 by in Photographs

Iron Roper

Posted on January 18, 2026 by | 1 comment

We branded another bunch on the calf table yesterday, labeled by longtime neighbor Earl McKee as the “Iron Roper”.


The transition from heading and heeling our calves has been smooth, giving us the advantage of branding on short notice as opposed to inviting ropers days in advance during a busy branding season. Though not as much fun, we can get the job done quicker and with less people. We also think it’s easier on the calves not being drug across the corral waiting to be heeled, and keeping the bull calves off the ground while being castrated is also more sanitary.

In any event, it’s also easier on us and our close neighbors, but each to his own, we’ve been there.

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

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TASTE OF THE WILD

Posted on January 12, 2026 by | Leave a comment

We filled buckets of mushrooms
my mother’s grumpy father and I
freshly instructed at ten
what toadstools looked like.

I brought my share home for a panful
of wild slathered in garlic and butter
but got the blame
for my father’s upset stomach.

Back when I was invincible,
riskng chance with circumstance,
I filled buckets on my own
as the ground warmed after rain.

And today, freckled-capped colonies
claiming fresh green beckon me,
pink or brown underneath,
to taste one more time.

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Posted in Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal

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FOR BEING HUMAN

Posted on January 10, 2026 by | 1 comment

I count the barks in the dark
before sunrise, dog on the job
as I try to cypher who intrudes

our tranquility—so much like
tragic news in the daylight
hunting humanity and me

after the primal bellowing
of bulls echo the canyon,
or the solo owl in a nearby oak

searches for an answer,
as joyous choruses of coyotes
find one another

before the day’s work
of stalking rodents
or claiming carrion.

Earthbound, they can’t fathom
the news I hear and read,
feel it clutch mind and heart,

the wounded part of me
cut both ways
for being human.

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Posted in Poems 2026, poetry

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EARLY ON

Posted on January 4, 2026 by | 1 comment

Once they get their legs to travel
and explore apart from mother,
left at the babysitter’s with fresh

calf licked clean asleep, they center
at the water trough waiting for the udder
off grazing to return. Every morning’s

‘buck and run’, opposing blind sprints
before they learn how to stop
only to circle back to where they began.

Always the stealer, head marked with manure,
waiting for the young cow’s calf to suck
before approaching from the rear—

a dance of patience and insistence
in a great green ballroom that becomes them—
it takes a herd to raise a calf.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal

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ALONG FOR THE RIDE

Posted on January 2, 2026 by | Leave a comment

Damn-near naked now
after good rains
without a frost
by New Years,
fleeting autumn colors
gone drab brown
before undressing.

Each twig stripped
of new growth leaves,
water pumped
into veins to see
if these fine lines
survive—and we
along for the ride.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal

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THE RAIN GAUGE

Posted on January 1, 2026 by | 1 comment 
A young man’s pastoral dream
of forever meadows sprinkled with cattle
was still possible with work and rain,

with the right people and partner
to hold it, and one another, together
humbly yielding to the dry years, 

	the brown leaves of families:
	old oaks dotting the hillsides 
	before saying goodbye— 

before me now in a light rain upon 
the green as I step gladly into it   
to check the rain gauge.

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Posted in Poems 2026, poetry, Ranch Journal

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