Author Archives: John

Merry Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2014 | 4 comments

We are blessed this Christmas with the gift of grass after thirty-plus months of historic drought in California, with extraordinary conditions beginning with a 1.76” warm, slow rain at the first of November followed by a thick germination of feed and warm growing weather, and just enough rain to keep it alive until the 2.5” storm two weeks ago. We have good feed now and the calves are growing quickly—from one extreme to the other, a magnificent start to our grass season. Still getting comfortable with the color green, with wet weather, we are grateful and relieved. These hills are miraculously resilient!

And we truly appreciate you and the 400+ others who have followed this blog and endured the drought with us—the recent dusty poems and photographs that are recorded here—and took the time to leave encouraging and sympathetic comments. Thank you all.

Robbin and I wish you a Merry Christmas as the year unwinds, hoping for peace and understanding among all men as we begin 2015, another opportunity to find that common strand within each of us to share. From our family to yours: MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR ☺

4 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Calves, cows, Drought, Dry Creek, Merry Christmas, photographs, water, weather

COWBOY TALK

Posted on December 24, 2014 | 6 comments

We start with trails
that haven’t changed
near the top of the world—

                    switchbacks stacked
                    in scree
                    to gaps between
                    bare peaks like teeth
                    above the timberline
                    chewing at the blue,
                    blue sky

and the solitude

                    waiting in ambush
                    to welcome you home
                    to rainbow trout
                    now spawning,

                    green backs packed
                    in the leak
                    of a snowmelt lake
                    where white clouds
                    float upon water.

                    Alone in the smear
                    of starlight falling
                    upon solid rock,
                    it glows
                    like a lantern.

We start with trails
we know
how to get there.

for Lee and Earl

6 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014

Tagged backcountry, Great Western Divide, Kaweah, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, Sawtooth Peak, snowmelt, solitude, trout, water, weather

WITH EASE

Posted on December 23, 2014 | 7 comments

Old violence is not too old to beget new values.
– Robinson Jeffers (“The Bloody Sire”)

With ease, we have evolved to softer versions
of ourselves—no longer lean, Dust Bowl men
in coveralls waiting for work and a weather change,

sinew no longer strained to stretch the harvest
of endless furrows. Within earshot of lamenting
old men leaning on fences, I was part of a future

doomed with easy-living, and so I have been
by comparison, yet with little time for visiting
face-to-face, eye-to-eye. We have become immune

to the violence next door, alive in cyberspace, and
deaf to war—the clash of sword-on-shield or bigger
better guns barking how to cull the herd—with ease,

we have evolved to envy dumb animals and birds
in touch with the sky, yearning for ignorance
and bliss. And all the old values now lost to youth.

7 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014

Tagged "The Bloody Sire", birds, Drought, evolution, Hereford Bull, photographs, poetry, Robinson Jeffers, values, Violence, war, wildlife

Monkeyflower

Posted on December 22, 2014 | 2 comments

WPC(4) — “Yellow”

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs

Tagged Dry Creek, Macro Monday, photographs, weekly-photo-challenge, wet seep monkeyflower, wildflowers

Fiddleneck

Posted on December 22, 2014 | Leave a comment

WPC(3) — “Yellow”

White Mustard

Posted on December 22, 2014 | Leave a comment

WPC(2) — “Yellow”

BEGINNING

Posted on December 21, 2014 | 2 comments

Snow up-canyon, dull green slopes on ashen
skies. With a few clear angels, tiny lights
dim and blink independently on the bare

Red Bud wrapped from last year’s Christmas,
before dawn. Leftovers after drought that
you can see from the road at night, singing

‘we’re still alive—’. Coming back to myself,
a black bull grumbles across the dry creek bed,
listening for the whereabouts of an answer.

First light prolonged at Winter Solstice that
I could not imagine waiting for us—I am
surprised with silence of this new beginning.

WPC — “Yellow”

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal

Tagged Christmas lights, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, Red Bud, water, weather, weekly-photo-challenge, Winter Solstice

Two Ranges on the Solstice 2014

Posted on December 21, 2014 | 3 comments

It’s rare to see across the San Joaquin Valley to the California Coast Range anymore, over the small community of Elderwood, from the Paregien Ranch, then look east to the Kaweah Peaks of the Great Western Divide, and Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park — a good air day!