August 27, 2015, 6:30 a.m.
57,000 acres
$32.5 million
25% containment
Fire continues to burn on both sides of Highway 180 and the South Fork of the Kings River, leaving rock slides from the steep granite walls that now block vehicular access to Cedar Grove and points beyond. Smoke so thick in Dry Creek Canyon, you can almost identify the wood that has burned by smell: pine, cedar, fir and redwood. We quit work early yesterday.
August 27, 2015, 6:45 a.m.
All the snakes in our mind
rise like cobras
from baskets of grass, or
flat heads parting dry stems
moving towards us.
Even the Yokuts tried
to tame them, or at the least
make peace with the dark
agents of the Underground.
Less than two weeks ago, we began efforts to find more water in the Greasy watershed utilizing David Langton’s backhoe, the first time a backhoe has ever been to this part of the ranch. Terri and I made the loop with hay yesterday to monitor our water and feed the girls getting ready to calve.
The second trough at Ragle Springs is now full and overflowing. When time allows, we’ll have to plumb an overflow at the low end away from the dirt fill placed around the trough that will probably entail chipping a saddle in the concrete in order to cement a pipe that will have to be anchored to a post beside the trough to keep the cows from breaking the concrete when they rub on the pipe. Any kind of construction for cattle is a challenge. But for the moment, we have plenty of water storage available for the cows, giving us two good springs in our Sulphur pasture. Ragle Springs
The troughs are full and the new spring box is running steady @ about 1/3 gpm. Railroad
Water continues to accumulate at Grapevine at two locations. Grapevine
The cows were scattered and harder to locate yesterday, grazing farther from water now, secure and satisfied that water will be available tomorrow.
For Source and Age Verification, we document our first calf born for the season, so buyers and consumers will know the age of our oldest calf. (First only if we don’t include the four calves born a month early after a bull jumped the gun at the end of last October.) Surprise
We track circles on the same ground
through brush and granite rock,
over mountains and down canyons
patched with spooky skeletons
of trees, broken limbs at their feet.
Last year’s blond and brittle feed
folds into dust under foot, under wheel
into decent firebreaks swirling around us
as we check springs and clean water troughs
measured with our eye. We carry hay,
fat cows come running six to the bale
once a week, fresh calves knocking
at the door of a new and wobbly world—
waiting to inhale one hundred degree heat.
Too soon to rain, we plod like cows
in dusty circles, all soft trails
lead to water and shade, or to the hum
of solar pumps in abandoned wells.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged August, broken limbs, Calves, cows, Drought, granite rock, Greasy Creek, Hay, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather
Whoever you are,
we work for you,
for the future of the wild,
for cows planting and harvesting
grass, for the easy burger
drive-thru, your leather shoes
and the steak on your plate.
You pay us once a year
when the calves are fat,
before the feedlot
and the killer plant,
we work for you
everyday of the week—
whoever you are,
we work for you.
The dry casualties,
more cordwood and deadfall fuel,
litter the landscape.
It’s been a mystery to Robbin and I for several years as to who or what has been stripping or eating the bark of certain California Buckeyes below Sulphur Peak.
Only noticeable on a few trees this time of year, we have speculated all manner of rare varmints or animals. Last week while feeding and checking our stock water in the Greasy Creek watershed, Terri and I spotted the culprit in the act, an ordinary ground squirrel. I have often wondered how ground squirrels, half a mile or more from any water, get a drink or enough moisture to survive our summers. Perhaps I’m on the right track, or it may be something else altogether that drives a ground squirrel to ultimately kill the limbs of select Buckeye trees.
To complete our documentation of last week’s efforts to improve the availability of water for cattle, Terri Blanke stands beside the upper concrete box last Wednesday, one of many constructed by Earl McKee, Sr. and Lee Maloy in the 1930s when they packed cement and sand on mules from the Kaweah River, five miles and 2,500 feet in elevation away.
From the bottom, the upper box was plumbed to the lower box with 1½“ steel pipe too rusty and leaky to repair, rendering the lower box useless. In the 1990s, Earl McKee, Jr. and Chuck Fry constructed the pond below with dozers to collect all the leaks plus seasonal runoff. Dirt tank dry by the end of June for past two years, I installed the little galvanized trough last year to provide clean water by utilizing a hole in the side of the upper box.
While David Langton was mucking out the pond at Grapevine last Saturday, I plumbed the second concrete tank to the overflow of the little galvanized trough with 1 ¼“ PVC and galvanized riser. On Monday, while David was covering the PVC, he bumped the rock beside the galvanized trough with his backhoe’s outrigger, which moved the empty trough and snapped my PVC fill pipe. We plugged the flow from the upper box with a plastic bag and I went for hose at the corrals a mile below to syphon water into the galvanized trough rather than lose it, giving me time (2½ hours) to get to town for galvanized pipe replacements.
There wasn’t enough water stored in the little galvanized trough for the fourteen head of cows living at Ragle Springs, yet the little trough filled and overflowed at night. Assuming the lower box doesn’t leak as it fills, we will have enough water stored for the fourteen cows—a good day for all.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged David Langton, Dirt Works, Earl McKee, Ragle Springs, Sulphur Peak, weekly-photo-challenge
RAISING HELL
We don’t talk about
the drought, anymore:
four years dry,
we have adapted
and survived our fears—
scratched for water,
sold half our cows—
but ready for storms
to raise some more.
WIND SONG
Perhaps we are cursed
to stay busy, put our shoulders
to the rock, embrace it—
move the planet
with small accomplishments,
little marks never permanent
that become our joy:
like new fence
guitar string tight
keeps neighbors strong,
picked by the wind
to play its song.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged accomplishment, Grapevine Spring, staisfaction, water, work
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