The day has come to plant the seed,
these youngsters knowing nothing
of one another, of propagation,
or the nine months before
she becomes a mother
nosing and nursing her first calf—
deep-rooted instinct drives them.
A dead-beat dad, he moves on
to practice what he’s learned,
to keep track of all the girls
he sorts by name and nature,
always ready to go to work
or play like people we know
from the Internet news,
or some a bit closer to home.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, Ranch Journal
Tagged breeding, bulls, heifers, photography, poetry
Granite outcrops clean,
lichen islands
ignite in flames,
November’s sunset
after a good long rain—
gray back to green,
both slopes and flats—
creek stalled
a mile upcanyon,
black dots
of cows and calves
grazing ridgetops.
Glistening tree bough
drops diamonds glistening,
raining rain.
There is more to heaven,
I suppose, a giving-up
of tarnished flesh
and character,
collected wisdom
won the hard way
for eternity—
this canyon green
I’d rather stay.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, Ranch Journal
We’ve let the commentators have their say
as if they understand the price of beef.
We’ve let politicians have their day
pontificating plans that create grief
among both cowmen and folks in town
trying to overhaul how the market works
when demand is more and supply is down
due to drought and the rising costs that hurts
us all. We let them talk, let them repeat
to show what they don’t know when numbers shout
that we have more mouths to fill with red meat
with fewer cows and cowmen due to drought.
We pray for rain and to be left alone
with a little meat still left on the bone.
Posted in Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged beef, cattle market, Drought, politics
Lots of commentary on the cattle business lately with a focus on the price of beef. But relative to inflation, $20 will buy a cheeseburger, fries and a soda or a USDA Choice New York steak at Costco. What a deal!
Our 4-year drought (2012-2016) doesn’t seem that long ago when we had to cull some older bred cows for slaughter in order to feed the rest of our herd expensive hay. A good part of the reason why producing cow numbers are at a 75 year low. Though the media has its red meat theories, nobody mentions that the US population has more than doubled since 1951. This is simple to understand: supply and demand.
KEEPING SECRETS
How do they know, these old fat cows
that read a baggy sadness in my walk
among them checking irons as they pull
alfalfa stems apart to tongue green leaf
in the corral? The gates are set, waiting
for the truck to town. There is nothing
right about the moment, that they know—
little consolation in my voice, they eye me
suspiciously searching for details
in my muted gestures. If I told them
all I know of town, of auction rings
and rails, they would all revolt
for the brushy hills, lay fences down
to take their chances without water
through the summer—that I know.
-JCD (“Best of the Dry Years, 2012-2016”)
The three variables for the cattle business are weather, price and politics, any one which can reduce our once-a-year paycheck to a loss, but two or more can be an economic disaster—none of which have we, nor the government, any control over.
In the photo above, Robbin and I fed a few replacement heifers before the forecast Atmospheric River. The grass geminated last month has become short and spotty and we have to keep them in shape to cycle and breed when we turn the bulls out in two weeks—just part of the business.
As I write, it’s been raining overnight.
Posted in Photographs, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged beef, Drought, Dry Creek, photography, poetry, politics, rain, red meat, water, weather
I wake with the dream after telling Earl
how many cattle of his I saw, ten to twenty
cows at a distance in and out of the brush,
chemise and manzanita peeling flies off their backs
while grazing new green under their protection—
part of a flat mountain pasture claiming space
between the rocky slopes of Live Oak
with a good spring hidden from mortal eyes—
a perfect place for heaven, for the cows and calves
I spied that we agreed to gather this morning.
They didn’t seem shy, didn’t lift their heads
to see me on the ridge trying to get a count
while searching for an overgrown way out
as they moved slowly, one step at a time,
each leg waiting its turn towards taller grass.
But which horse that has died am I too old to ride,
though Earl is young and ready without a plan
for the adventure? Panicked, what am I to do?
I roll awake relieved from dark saddling, overjoyed
to have connected with my neighbor and foster father.
Earl A. Mckee, Jr.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry
Tagged DREAMS, Earl McKee, Harvest Supermoon 2025, photography, poetry
Our friend and neighbor Chuck Fry had just placed his new trail cam up on the Paregien Ranch the day before this shot, (October 8th, so ignore the time and date that he hasn’t brought up to speed). We were surprised and shocked to see three lions, who judging from the location and their direction, had just passed through our cows and calves around the water tough in the daylight. It makes us nervous, nevertheless–a wonder we have any calves at all.
Short of a half-inch of rain, on the cusp of our first northern storm, we’ve been calving for 30 days now and feeding these first and second-calf heifers until the green grass comes. The cows leave their calves in nurseries, though some are old enough to eat hay.
But like children of any age bunched-up and left alone, they look like they’re headed for trouble. Robbin caught their hillarious high jinks while mama’s not looking in the following video.
A great time of year!
We kept relics in the garden
to remind us of the sentries at night
surrounding orchards of oranges
their fire-red caps lit,
smokestacks glowing, chugging
diesel to keep the freeze out.
A black cloud hung low
in the mornings over Exeter,
white diaphanous curtains gray,
suet under grammar school noses
to save the crop of gold
the town depended on in the old days.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry
Tagged Exeter, freeze, oranges, photography, poetry, smudge pots
All the old expressions whispered beneath my breath
suggest more than the multisyllabic references
fed to humanity hungry for the resonance of wisdom,
the slippery rhythm of a song to hang a hat on,
but too naïve, too misused, too untried to know
what we had to learn by hand. Most of the common
phrases gone with the passing-on of actual facts
no one yet living left to reiterate or forget.
So know-it-all I have become when whispers
venture as if to know with self-important volume,
as if my roar outweighs a worthier opinion.
Best keep my whispers to myself, the page
and call it poetry, best keep the conversations
with myself humorous, short and lasting.
May I say the world is sad,
despondent in my blue eyes
behind the wire-rimmed glass
reflecting the outside space
and green tree parts before me.
Thin hair short and gray
to match the beard
that hides some of my face
from the sun it’s become
allergic to ever since
absorbing Cylence
to control the flies on cattle,
my careless machismo
worn for thirty years.
We wear some mistakes
on the flesh, the rest reside
deep inside.
drycrikjournal 