Much like cattle,
the sounds we make
speak more than words
that often skirt the truth—
that cannot release
the real stress like
the intonations of
a moan or groan.
Between us
another language
animals comprehend,
and when surprised
or truly overjoyed,
a melody of accents—
sweet poetry that will
never grace a page.
reblogged from December 24, 2017
Blueberry moonrise
never in the same place twice—
acorns ripe in oak trees.
Four-point buck, horns
dull just out of velvet
five weeks before season opens—
quick hoof thump
of my old heart
upon the hard ground,
I smell venison marinade
over an open flame,
taste the back-strap melt
upon my tongue,
wild cunning juices
surging in my veins.
I become young again
and shoot
through a camera lens.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019, Ranch Journal
Had we fish to stupefy
with turkey mullein seeds
the late rains have left
in turquoise waves
above the knees—
we could be native.
Instead we feed
the squirrels beneath
these fuzzy canopies
where shotgun hunters
will wait for mourning dove
to light and leave.
Croton setigerus: a native of the western United States, and found commonly from southern California north to Washington, particularly in the more arid locations away from the coast.
I don’t ever remember Turkey Mullein, or Dove Weed, so tall and thick and claiming such large tracts of dry summer pasture, or its color quite so blue—worth journaling, I think.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dove Weed, photography, poetry, Turkey Mullein, wildflowers
When we were children,
we played among the wrecks
of old cars and horse-drawn
wagons with wooden spokes
that hemmed the orchards
that sustained us—families
scattered round distant towns
we could visit
with ripe imaginations.
Bigger now, cities spreading
like amoeba ingesting farms
and one another, like wildfires burning
closer as convenient conflagrations
that have erased the landmarks
where we hung our memories.
It could be creeping senility
that I embrace, a watercolor wash
across pastoral landscapes
rather than the spinning pace
of progress—perpetual motion
like the galaxies of space.
They have begun to circumambulate new slopes to graze
around the house
learning to make their circles between troughs and ponds,
forty-five days away
for the first new mothers to lick a calf up to suck
for the next nine months.
A week off the irrigated green, they’ve overcome the shock
of dry hollow stems
to make a home where we can watch and worry,
as is our custom—
we get know them. About a third will make the herd
for ten years.
With so much time together, we operate by instinct,
you and I,
triggered by well-worn habits, the angle of the sun
and the length of shadows
these young girls already know—a second nature
we had to learn.
Terri in the gate.
As the days get shorter, saddling at six is damn near dark.
Delightfully cool morning (70°) as we gathered our weaned heifers to sort for our replacements. We were hoping for 40-50 head to breed to the Wagyu bulls in December, but Robbin, Allie, and Terri ended up with 61 when all was said and done. Oftentimes, going in with preconceived number doesn’t always work as quality tends to sort itself. More to keep and less to sell is not terrible news.
After we had taken the two bunches to their respective pastures. I couched my congratulations to the girls with our private joke, “It’s not the way I’d have done it. It was better.”
Have a Happy Birthday Terri! We love you (and Trigger).
Posted in Photographs
© Terri Blanke
Not an easy climb
to rise above the bluster
of the self=righteous.
© Joel Pickford
A comprehensive read from Mark Arax, author of “The King of California” and “The Dreamt Land”, from the latest California Sunday Magazine about events surrounding the catastrophic Paradise Fire that took 85 lives and 19,000 structures.
I am growing downward,
smaller, one among the grasses.
– Wendell Berry (“Thirty More Years”)
Irrigator until the end,
the vines were his children,
more easily trained than those
of his flesh.
Water flowed in furrows,
slowed to soak with checks,
his art with a hoe stretched
across eighty acres.
Quixotic silhouette against
a rising or setting sun,
swashbuckling overshoes,
hoe in hand,
he found peace deep within
his vineyard rows, red-seeded
table grapes, long ago dozed
for citrus on drip.
(click)
