How many jillion rains have washed away
the rodent digs from these exposed intrusions,
lichen-stained, fractured magma rockpiles
changing shape in the sun’s daylight and shadow
to appear to be alive for eons, like a trout
breaching a clay wave, free to see the sky?
Some have seen so much that they have souls.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged anthropomorphism, Lichen, magma, photography, poetry, rain, rockpiles, rocks, soul, water, Windmill Spring
The foothill poppies are beginning to show on our south slopes as temperatures hover near 70 degrees. The white popcorn flowers and orange fiddlenecks have begun to claim the gentler ground in what appears to be the beginning of a colorful wildflower year with the ample moisture (Atmospheric River) we received last month.
Beginning this evening, forecasts vary as temperatures drop into the low thirties with a cold front that will engulf California. Weathermen are predicting snow down to 1,000 feet, nearly 1,000 feet below this photograph. There is even some talk of fourteen inches of snow in Three Rivers. Furthermore, Weather Underground predicts rain on all but one day for the next two weeks.
The road to the Paregien ranch has just dried out and cleared of fallen trees, but we still haven’t been able to get to the calves to brand up there. We lost a month in time to the Atmospheric River in January, but two weeks of predicted rain with a week to dry out puts that branding into the middle of March at the soonest and our calves are almost too BIG to handle.
Nothing is certain in this business, but as a weather dependent livelihood we’ll have to be ready to adapt. (Cut another load of dead-standing Manzanita and Blue Oak yesterday, at least we should be warm).
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged photographs, poppies, rain, snow, spring, weather, wildflowers, winter
After ten dry years, the drought-killed,
dead-standing oaks have shed their limbs
in piles, like clothes at their feet—some
centuries claiming space, offering summer
shade to cows, acorns to a host of hungry
mouths, hidden homes to hawks and lesser
feathered flocks—and have begun to tip
over as the rain-soaked earth lets go
of their decomposing roots to rest
on fences or across the dirt tracks
between us and our children grazing
the ridgetops: like emerald thighs, toes
reaching for the flats along the creek.
Despite the disassembled skeletons
of a generation passing that litters
and melts into the ground, lush canyon
and slope come alive to welcome and beckon
to embrace me for the first time
in a decade—and I overwhelmed, submissive
having spent my penance on unknown sins
I will confess just to prolong this moment.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged anthropomorphism, Drought, Dry Creek, guilt, joy, penance, photography, poetry, rain, weather
As great (for us) as the three-week Atmospheric River was, it put everyone’s branding schedules behind, most roads too wet to get to our cattle. Normally, we’d be at Elko this time of year, but with travel and time away from business, we needed to stay at home before our calves got too big to handle easily.
When I look around our community’s branding pens I realize now that most of the old timers are gone, that we have taken their places going ‘old-people slow’, and we prefer it. Fortunately we have some young muscle to work the ground.
Robbin and I have scaled our operation down, in part due to our heavy culling to adapt to consecutive years of drought and also by selling half of our cows to my son Bob. Branding pasture by pasture, our bunches are now small enough to get by with three ropers, one calf stretched at a time. Our relaxed pace has become even more conducive for old friends to visit while we get the work done. These photos from our second branding of the season, it’s been great!
We head to Tony Rabb’s next week to brand after he assesses the rain forecast for this weekend.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged brandings, community, Drought, Elko, neighbors, old timers, photography, poetry, rain, weather, youth
Seed to grain
on a whim of the weather
watched constantly
from space
and here on planet Earth
swirling with tempests
beyond the hands
of politicians—
try as they might.
Rooted in dirt
we search the habits
of our wild totems
for miracles
and pray to God as well
for luck.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022
Tagged dirt, earth, God, luck, photography, poetry, TOTEMS, water, weather
March 10, 2011
Once the invincible gambler,
I was weaned on cowboy heroics
to wear the scrapes and scars
of chance and circumstance
stiffly—my bones now groan
ground under the pressure
of time, worn smooth as cobbles
in a creekbed. Stride shortened,
my feet slide searching for stability,
having danced this earth as one
in my collected dreams aboard
four great horses I’ve outlived—
I am learning to change my mind,
to find the flavor in a moment
I’ll not savor another time.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged age, chance, change of mind, circumstance, horseback, photography, poetry, time
RIBBON OF ROAD
Not the least hurt by this ribbon of road carved on their sea-foot.
– Robinson Jeffers (“The Coast-Road”)
Fridays bring the caravans of Christians,
SUVs freeway-spaced and paced at sixty
up this snaky road to the pines and cedars
to pray
and low-snow weekends, the growl of mud grips
on decomposing asphalt, armies of colored jeeps
and shiny four-wheel drives drone up-canyon
to play
do not see these hills leaking with pleasure,
every wrinkle running with crystal streams
of rain, three weeks of storms rushing to
a rising, chocolate creek with foam, nor
the naked sycamores, leaves undressed,
white limbs dancing, rosy fingers reaching
for steamy clouds afloat upon the green
oak-studded slopes, black dots of cattle
scattered with all the legends gone before me.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged Dry Creek, Dry Creek Road, encroachment, photography, play and pray, poetry, rain, runoff, sycamores, weather
The fine dust upon old tools I have forgotten
as I clean the shop: my brace and bits, some
long-enough to chew through creosoted
railroad ties while scraping granite gravel. Mighty
hugs to my shoulder in long, youthful spurts
that warmed the birdshot bearings out-of-round
where there was no electricity to hang a gate
miles from the asphalt. It was my third.
I wore them out. I knew no other way.
I recognize the dead scent of time as mine
on the shelves, in wooden boxes no one makes
anymore, protecting stiff-leather headstalls
and rusty bits we’ll never use again. I must make
room for the cordless handyman, especially
since this old battery has begun to run down.
Posted in POEMS 2023, Ranch Journal
Tagged age, dust, poetry, rechargeable batteries, time, tools
Beautiful in the world fabric, excesses that balance each other
like the paired wings of a flying bird.
– Robinson Jeffers (“Still the Mind Smiles”)
It was all the clods at once become precious
– William Stafford (“Earthdweller”)
Is it fear that judges so, good and evil,
or guilt for easy breath, or lackey to politic’s
endless stream of currency?
The creek runs full, carrying deadfall bobbing,
fat limbs lumbering like submarines or whales
to rest upon the banks when flood recedes.
The miracle of rain erasing tracks for fresh
beginnings: for another turn of circumstance—
that wild divergence of extremes that want
control, like taming wolves to lap dogs
that always fail, even in our minds though
dressed in our latest, eco-friendly outerwear.
The devil’s in the details that embrace truth
and trigger memory, that glorious flight
that connects us to time on this earth.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged creek, deadfall, exremes, fear, human nature, nature, photography, poetry, rain, Robinson Jeffers, truth, William Stafford
Two coyotes lope across the road in the rain
in their retreat from the swollen creek, roaring
like prolonged thunder distantly—unafraid
for they are fat on rodents curled in flooded
burrows, tailings fresh. The herons and egrets
will appear with the sun, stand guard like statues
in garden nurseries look alive. Too wet to fly,
the sheltered hawks in the limbs of leafless trees
will spread their wings until their feathers dry.
And we too wait. Some days it’s too wet—
too hot, too cold, or too dry to work—but once
in a while it makes more sense just to behold.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged coyotes, Drought, Dry Creek, Egrets, hawks, HERONS, photography, poetry, rain, RODENTS, water, weather
drycrikjournal 