Author Archives: John

Ranch Journal: Having Fun (6 pix)

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With no worries about stockwater nor under the gun to feed cattle everyday, Robbin and I went to the Paregien Ranch Saturday to check on the bulls we put out Monday and to cut a Kubota load of stove wood ahead of the rain forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday.

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The grass is fading in places but the cows are holding up fairly well with growing demand from their calves. What feed we have lacks strength, but with our reduced numbers, the cows are staying full.

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We were a curiosity to a couple of bull calves, approaching three months old, as we cleaned up a dead tree near the solar pump that we installed this summer. Robbin took pictures while stacking the brush.

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Liking the smell and taste of the wood chips and sawdust, I was worried that they might try to lick the chain saw blade.

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Just checking on our cows and calves and cutting wood are the fun jobs we haven’t had the time or luxury to enjoy,

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and getting comfortable with relaxing seems to come in stages after virtually two years of feeding and trying to keep the nucleus of our cow herd intact. But we made real progress towards becoming human again over our fun-filled Thanksgiving weekend.

 

SAPSUCKER

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Coffee at dawn, drumming
the Honey Locust—
old men talk, listening.

 

 

DRIVING CATTLE

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A convergence of wills,
young mothers to be,
moving to new country.

 

 

WPC — “Converge” —

THANKSGIVING 2014

December 8, 2010

December 8, 2010

 

The green struggles in the clay.
Sycamores stand half-dressed
beside an empty bed exposing
white limbs as the sun sets.
The shadow of the ridge behind us
becomes a long, dark stage
for a chorus line of dancing girls,
arms entwined, kicking high
at the gate as we leave home
for a fire upstream—turkey
trimmed with camaraderie.
No traffic on the road to see
these celebrations along the creek
as the canyon waits for rain.

 

— Happy Thanksgiving —

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WHEN WORDS ARE DONE

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                                                                                     the world
                                                  lives in the death of speech
                                                  and sings there.

                                                       – Wendell Berry (“The Silence”)

 

We name landmarks on maps in our minds
so we can go there. Some to detail feeling
with art reaching-out to all humanity
searching for that common hearthstone

beyond man’s hackneyed adjectives
and political objectives. We press names
into place with indelible ink hoping
to get lost in the map’s open space

to touch the unnamable and soar
with the song. Those elusive, musical
fragments, those glimpses in trees, but
all we have when words are done.

 

TUESDAY

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We could be cattle, days
with no names like ticks on a clock—
each dark silence, welcome escape
from two years of want,

or stampeded substitute gods
overrun with adulation,
bringing feed and water to
damned-near everything.

Only now, with well-timed rain
and drizzles freeing cotyledons
from the clay, watching the young
bulls get acquainted with cows,

do we forget the drought
to see our future grass
and heifer calves—sure
that tomorrow is Tuesday.

 

GOLDEN EAGLE BREAKFAST

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Left for the wind to clear
hard clay, soft remains
of a Red Tail Hawk.

 

 

DISCLAIMER

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I’m not a real photographer—
just trying to capture
real things differently

with a point & shoot
while working in weather
wearing good cameras down

to a bad investments—
small fortunes rendered
to useless cases.

No place for tripods
moving cattle, feeding hay—
no words to hold the wild

still. No time, dearly beloved,
when deep on the inside
of an unraveling ball of twine.

 

RED BARN 2010

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Roof in the trees raised
by January wind and rain—
we tarped the hay.

 

 

WPC(3) — “Angular”