Early morning gathers to wean our calves interrupt the blogging routine, along with age and rising temperatures as we acclimate towards summer. My son is down from the City, welcome and valuable help, good company and humor, we’ve kept him busy since Saturday. My head is full of unfinished poems, taking a backseat to the work at hand.
Posted in Ranch Journal
Our white Echinopsis has begun to bloom under gray skies and the light was fading when I thought of the camera. Because of their placement on the deck, perspective complicated the process, but with interesting results, I think, through the railing.
Native of South America, there are 129 known species of Echinopsis.
We hold our breath
just before
Memorial Day weekend
winds up, hear
the gears whine,
feel the speed
at ninety-plus,
barbed wire either side—
listening for the abrupt,
the certain screech
as you fade up the canyon.
We pray for your mother.
This post begins the new category of ‘DECK POEMS’: John & Robbin’s evening collaborations.
The wild of Japan
bloom with ranch vegetables
under a gray sky.
Flower Friday
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Easter Lilies, flower-friday, garden, Japan, vegetables
The creatures love it:
light April showers in May
postponing summer.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Ranch Journal
Too young to be wise within
the great old barn Homer built
to hold dry-land hay before the bales—
pulleys and rail, tall mangers either side
for teams of horseflesh, wooden floor
tourist cameras never see.
From the rafters of rough-cut fir
the world is small, the only light
leaks under eaves.
Cost too great to restore my dreams
of slower days and longer nights,
I wonder—wherein wisdom reigns.
The boys are on vacation across the creek as we gather to wean our calves from their mothers. With each new bull added to their pasture, primal bellows ring up and down the canyon as they establish a new pecking order since they were last together.
The Mrnak Herefords have been the basis of our crossbreeding program, adding heterosis, or bybrid vigor, to our Angus cow herd. ‘119’, pictured above, has completed his third year of service with every cow in his pasture recently palpated bred, a remarkable accomplishment considering the steep terrain.
Two years ago he broke one his horns in a battle with an Angus bull, two years his senior, that ended tragically for the Angus. Fortunately, we were able to doctor and repair his broken horn. King of our bulls, he still has to prove himself as the recent raw spots between his horns attest.
Nothing today. No rain, but cool
perfection—no excuse
for not blooming, producing fruit.
It’s how the seasons raise us
like vegetables
on the uneven ground within
the wild, small irrigated spaces
we inhabit with routine
worn smooth by calloused hands.
We have become domestic
after all these years
of shipping truckloads to town,
watching our harvest disappear
down the road—
nothing today, but good habits.
drycrikjournal 