Beneath the blankets
of fuzzy bloom, arms and legs
serve dinner for two.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged Crane Fly, haiku, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, weather, wildflowers, wildlife
For most who don’t know, my family purchased the Greasy Creek Ranch from Earl McKee, mentor, surrogate father and good friend for nearly fifty years, where Robbin and I run our cows and calves. Upon seeing the photo of the two bull calves that escaped a simple gather to the corrals for branding, he was moved to write the following poem:
My mind recalls this precious glade
Where these two youngsters lived and played,
And like years ago their ears would hear,
The trumpeting wails of their fathers near.
That trail close by, I long have trod,
On a favorite horse, these hands have shod,
We both know the song that the Robins sing,
And the sounds of the cattle, where the cowbells ring.
Where the blooming Chaparral smells so fair
And the scent of wild flowers fills the air.
Who wouldn’t come back to this peaceful place,
To see Sulphur Mountain’s Majestic face?
I too, wish I could return once more,
To what these two calves, were longing for,
God planned for this place to be left alone,
And like them, I will always say, “That’s Home”.
E. A. M. — 3/13/2015
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged branding, California Golden Poppies, Calves, Earl A. McKee, Greasy Creek, photographs, poetry, Sulphur Peak, wildflowers
Two centuries of women
gone beyond
healing and grinding,
needing shade
away from men—
dead Live Oak place
to roost for years,
our pair of crows
make familiar
flutters of love
balanced on a branch,
know one another’s
every feather,
preen and quiver
with how it feels
into the gloaming
afterwards.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged birds, crow lovers, crows, Kaweah, Live Oak, photographs, poetry, wildlife, Yokuts
Leftover cedar
logs from the house
twenty-five years ago
paid for
frame a loamy mix
of decomposing granite and clay
with horse manure
stirred and piled
fine as sand
three years fluffed
with the skid steer
and fill what could be
a feeder along the fence—
a sixty-foot trough
for bare root raspberries
blackberries
border of red onions
come summer
and it not yet spring.
Like finches building nests
we enlarge the garden
in two half-days,
tend to instincts
warm air brings
and flesh demands
like plowing fingers
in fresh-worked dirt.
We lift another glass
and see colored fruit
years from here
paid-for.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged birds, blackberry, Dry Creek, garden, photographs, poetry, raspberry, red onions, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
This ground recovers our presence
with leaves and weeds, most all
of our mistakes erode with flowers,
explode with colors leaving seed
as accomplishment sags like ridgelines
of old barns and brittle wire between
broken posts as we sink satisfied
into the soil rich with the work
of hands. Calloused hands, hands
a horseback that track our thoughts
when we were green and learning
to see and think the hard way.
As we breathe, all the chiseled chins
of the rough and gruff retreat
to live as monuments in rock piles
with the honesty of rattlesnakes—
an immortality stirred into the earth
that can’t be purchased, but is always
upon always like the layers of dirt
our future depends, rooted within.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged Blue Oak, dirt, Dry Creek, earth, grass, immortality, photographs, poetry, rain, weather, wildflowers, wildlife
Close to coffee and cigarette,
I could be anywhere—
my tiny light lost
in night’s black sea.
Come dawn, she takes shape
to locate me beneath her
supine silhouette of ridges
rising, breathing like always.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged coffee and cigarette, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, weather
Somewhere it’s raining
lavender stars in my dreams
awaiting impact.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged Dodecatheon jeffreyi, Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, Sierra Shooting Star, wildflowers
Early yet in an early spring,
growing patches, orange-gold,
claim open slopes like flames,
Fiddleneck between gray skeletons
of Blue Oaks pushing bud,
feathery translucent leaves
where the gods walk ridges,
wave hands to paint,
adding color to hillside green
we’ve not seen tall in years.
Out of dust and naked dirt,
new mosaics, lush with moments,
openings for everything put off
in drouth—real work we absorb,
take our sweet time to recognize.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Blue Oak, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, real work, time, weather, weekly-photo-challenge, wildflowers
I first spotted these flowers in March 2012, misidentifying them as Hill Sun Cups, then, due to drought conditions, only saw them briefly again in 2014. At two locations across the creek and east of the house about 1/4 mile, they began blooming in late February of 2015.
According to the Calflora map, this is the northernmost sighting west of the Sierras. Not a rare species, if confines itself to Southern California and east of the Sierras. Always nice to find a wildflower established beyond its normal range.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, Eschscholzia minutiflora, photographs, Pygmy Poppy, wildflowers
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged 2015 Wagyu Calf Branding, branding, Dry Creek, Fire, garden, grapefruit, haiku, Naranja, oranges, photographs, poetry, Pork loins, weekly-photo-challenge