No spring chicken, she’s let herself go
wild after a decade of waterless summers
as if saving up the emptiness to fill at once—
every wrinkle in these hills oozing rivulets
into foaming cappuccino creeks cresting
towards runaway rivers spilling, flooding
valley towns and farm ground with lakes
and bogs—all the years of prayers answered
with much more passion than we wanted.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, flood, Mother Nature, photography, poetry, PRAYERS, rain, weather
Too many years courting goddesses,
genuflecting at the foot of ridgetops:
oak trees sharp and close enough to touch
to beg relief—to even entertain
such shameful blasphemy, such
feeble will to forever lose their ear.
Every river canyon churns to fill
and spill its reservoirs, white-capped
Sierras stacked with two-year’s snowpack
awaiting summer’s melt to flood the flats
and yet I can’t concede what is not me:
always ready, waiting for a good-hard rain.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged dams, flood, photography, poetry, prayer, rain, rain goddess, rivers, snow, weather
We have left our mark on this ground:
the house, the pipe, the horses,
cattle, shop and barn—and the avenues
between them—that were not here
forty years ago where the deer lay down
beside the road. Our tracks everywhere
we worked details into grazing hillsides
and raising calves you’ll never see
before they are erased by time’s storms
and someone else’s appetites and dreams.
Our short moment among the mortar holes
and pictographs that will outlive our presence.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry
Tagged culture, Home, mortar holes, photography, pictographs, poetry, time, tracks, Wuknaw
Road closures everywhere, San Joaquin Valley flooded, haven’t left Dry Creek Rd. for a week. Glad we’re on higher ground. 3.5″ more forecast Sunday thru Friday next week.
I am reminded of Christmas Eve, 1955. Much to my father’s chagrin and contrary to his good judgement, we celebrated with my mother’s parents, Dorothy and Floyd Cutler in Green Acres, Visalia. Mill Creek ran beside the home and we all took turns watching it rise on the concrete steps leading up from their garage. When it was time to leave, my Dad carried us three kids and Christmas presents through 3 feet of water to the car, then got the ’53 Buick stuck. My grandfather hooked on to it with his Studebaker pickup and we drove back to Exeter through the swamps (Lovers Lane to Anderson Road) on the two-lane highway in two plus feet of water (Kaweah River before the Terminus Dam), wincing every time we met another vehicle’s wake in the headlights.
Posted in Ranch Journal
Tagged 5 feet high and Rising, Dry Creek, flood, Johnny Cash, Kaweah River, rain, road closures, Terminus Dam, weather
The creek-flood bears no malice
as it carves its way to a flatland war
unearthing trees and buried cobbles
of past centuries—laying waste
to man’s old and new improvements.
It cares no more than the clouds and rain
that feed its energy, its violence
and its thunderous roar. Nor does it
bestow charity to soothe our minds
and flesh—it has no agenda, no noble
purpose nor dishonorable motives.
It just is what it always has been.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, flood, photography, poetry, rain, water, weather
Every day is a holiday
when you can’t remember
what day it is—
when you can’t leave the driveway,
can’t leave the blacktop,
when it’s too wet to plow
for weeks at a time
as the creek rises and falls
with Atmospheric Rivers.
The finches bring branches
of dry debris, Roadrunners
chaunt solicitous love songs
despite the divine disasters
that temper mortal urgencies
a week away from the Equinox.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric Rivers, cabin fever, Dry Creek, Mother Nature, photography, poetry, rain, weather
Highwater debris,
enough to measure peak flow
gauging stations miss.
We’ve begun naming creeks
that flood the dry draws,
pull nominees from our histories
while exchanging guffaws.
We have become the helpless
prisoners of the weather,
of flatland floods and saturated mud,
resisting cabin fever.
Roads and fences, trees to cut,
our work comes to a halt—
no need to fuss, cows don’t need us
with water, grass and salt.
Posted in Haiku 2023, Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged cabin fever, Dry Creek, flood water, haiku, helpless, humility, mud, photography, poetry, rain, runoff, water, weather
We never quite know
how our negligence
is ultimately received.
Somewhere upstream,
a tire too close to the creek,
became humor and irony
tumbling downstream
to balance and settle
with the flood debris—
a perfect amount
of seasoning for
a State of Emergency.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, Ranch Journal
Tagged brush catchers, Dry Creek, flood debris, high water, humor, irony, jetsam, photography, poetry, rain, weather
With a break in the weather, we, with the help of our neighbors and their equipment, began addressing the plugged culverts that were spilling flood water across Dry Creek Rd. Though we had cleaned the debris from this culvert after the first Atmospheric River, it became impacted with sand with subsequent rains. Essentially, the culvert is too small for these kinds of events and with so many flooding issues in Tulare County, we are low on their priority list.
All in all, we cleaned out three culverts yesterday, two of which have needed attention for years. The weathermen have downgraded the amount of rain to expect in coming days, but on top of the 1,000 cfs already flowing down Dry Creek canyon, its impact rides with the intensity of those rains.
We’re ready as we can be and doing what we can without getting off the asphalt and getting stuck.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric River, community, culverts, Dry Creek, flood water, neighbors, photography, rain, weather, yellow iron
Another 1.58″ in the last 24 hrs., 2-day total 3.79″, forecast of 4+” through Wednesday, 3/15.
2. Pipe fence we recently built to the creek acted like a brush catcher and is lying flat.
3 & 4. Culvert on Ridenhour Creek couldn’t handle the flow, wiped out fence and gate braces.
Lots of hillside sloughing on Dry Creek Rd, plugged culverts everywhere. Road closed. Greater damages to surrounding roads and small towns, Woodlake, Exeter, Elderwood.
We’re fine.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric Rivers, Dry Creek, flood water, photographs, rain, weather
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