Category Archives: Photographs

Bulls

 

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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.

 

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FORECAST: MAY 18, 2015

 

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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.

 

ENVELOPED

 

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Before succumbing
to outrageous misfortune:
puff up like a toad.

 

 

WPC(3) — “enveloped”

 

Enveloped by Fog — January 5, 2010

 

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No day to gather
cattle in a sea of fog—
just wait by the fire.

 

 

WPC(2) — “enveloped”

 

ONE MOMENT, PLEASE!

 
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In these hills, a man finds space that feels
familiar and friendly, and it must ask
in ways where we hang empty words
like ribbon just to find our way back – but
we stay a moment and let our horses blow.

They feel it – perhaps they feel it first
and do the asking of the place, or perhaps
it is the shards of light diffused at dawn
upon the many-legged oaks standing
knee-deep in grasses on the near ridge

that shield us from man’s square creations,
his cubic thinking. Perhaps the sensual grace
of limb or slope, or granite worn to look
inside our minds, but there are places
that ask nothing else of us but to breathe

and taste the air, inhale with our eyes
and drink with our flesh for just a moment.
Once dared, it becomes ever-easier to be
enveloped with the wild, an addictive peace
that embraces awe as eagerly as a child

might love – where a man can ride beyond
his time and station, beyond the tracks of those
before him: spaces that beg a moment’s notice
where both grand and simple revelations
are left and learned and lived in place.

                                        “Poems from Dry Creek” (Starhaven 2008)

 

 

WPC(1) — “enveloped”

 

MARIPOSA LILY Calochortus argillosus x 2

 

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Wet years in the clay
lilies unfurling, drawing
heaven’s attention.

 

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THE GIRLS

 

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It’s all about the girls
on this ranch, mothers
and grand, grandmothers
grazing a life away.

We’ve found our pace
despite the drought
trusting one another’s
competence and will.

Gentle strumming
in the background,
dark to light
and black again,

no day the same,
each moment full
of contrasting details,
lyrics raining down.

 

Shipping Wagyu X

 

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Yesterday morning, we shipped our Wagyu X calves from our first-calf heifers to Snake River Farms in American Falls, Idaho where they will be fed
until offered as American Kobe Beef. We began our program with Snake River Farms several years ago looking for smaller calves for our first-calf heifers while trying to avoid the genetic hangover of low birth weight Angus bulls. We rent the Wagyu bulls from Snake River Farms and contract to sell all our calves to them for a ten cent/lb. premium over market price.

Born small, our Wagyu X calves ship about 100/lbs. lighter than our English calves. This year, the steer calves averaged 568 lbs., our heaviest Wagyu X steer calves to date. In the photo above, Robbin, Clarence and the girls are parting cows from calves to be weighed before loading them on the truck.

 

SANITARY ENGINEERS

 

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Gathering deacons
waiting between casualties
dream of misfortune.

 

 

WPC(2)–“Forces of Nature”

 

SUBJECTS

 

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We are, and always have been, subjects
of the weather, of the blazing sun
and phasing moon, the swirling winds
and tides—subjects, lackeys to the Queen’s
whims and oversights—all men’s progress
subject to a careless sleeve. We think
we know her moods, read the signs,
taste change, but wait for instruction.

We are among the insects of the grasses,
our labors short-lived and forgotten
on this planet, with our real selves
but a mumble in the background.
We must learn to sing, find a voice
to harmonize with every changing
circumstance—a steady rhythm
we can dance to without stumbling.

No one of us can save the world
its pain, far greater than we care
to imagine, but before us each
new day, a place to put our hearts
and hands to work—opportunities
to improve the space in which we live—
a contagious caring running beneath
the outrageous currents we can’t control.

 

 

WPC(1)–“Forces of Nature”