Dust trails behind
plodding black cows off the hills
to water, bellies stretched with calf,
while we drink coffee—
and we are proud of these cows
who grazed uphill to bed
while we drank Tangueray and tonic,
slice of grapefruit instead of lime.
An acquired taste, raising cattle
through years of drought—
a bittersweet love affair
with the ground that sustains us.
We know her every crease
and wrinkle, and which leak water—
all of her magic spots
forever branded in our brains.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
I still call it “the Swamp”
where thirsty Valley Oaks
centuries-old shed their limbs
among barkless skeletons,
bleached bones like flesh
waiting to fall into the next life.
Half-mile across on Christmas Eve,
1955, the Kaweah flowed to the doors
of our ’53 Buick—headlights
diving into oncoming wakes
like Captain Nemo’s submarine.
Not free to run when it wants,
we have held the river up
in the hills for sixty winters,
only to let it run all at once
across the Valley to irrigate
orchards and summer crops—
no kids fishing from shady banks
a lazy river recharging wells.
We can’t fill the dams we have,
yet cotton trailer billboards suggest
that dams can make more water
without looking to the sky.
Robbin brought in and armload of (4) Striped Armenian Cucumbers early this morning that neither the rabbits nor squirrels have bothered this summer. More work, of course. This will be her umpteenth batch of crunchy dill pickles. The Bombay bottle has found a second life, filled with citronella now to deter the flies.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Bombay, flies, pickles, Striped Armenian Cucumbers
Forgive the fruit flies
their penchant for wine,
their bitter taste
and I
for defying nature
with a lid.
There is no end to it,
the assault
to comfort and convenience.
Our country is dry and short. We’ve pulled the bulls off the irrigated pasture to make room for our bred heifers due to begin calving by the middle of September. We will have to feed the bulls in this pasture where Allie and Terri were driving a few to water last week. Even though we’ve sold 25% of our cows, we continue to step up the amount of hay we’re feeding with no idea of when it will end or whether it will pay for itself in the long run. But if we have to sell more cows, we just don’t want them to be thin.
Cooper’s Hawk
under a rainbird’s shower,
yellow eyes
mermaid and frog
before taking a drink
at the ‘sip and dip’.
Too hot to hurry
in the heat
we all grow tame.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
Tagged Cooper's Hawk, Drought, water, wild
Four-thirty and it’s cooled down
from 115—black cows are leaving
sycamore shade for the water trough,
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plodding several hundred yards of hard clay
and short blond fuzz to drink,
not like last night’s forceful mob,
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but one-by-one, the order established
over years of living together—uphill
two hundred more to shady Blue Oaks
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to gather and decide which way to go.
The heat has slowed their rhythm
only slightly, they are bound to graze
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what’s left on the slopes behind us:
take the steep trail to the top of the ridge
or the long pull only part-way to the sky.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
Tagged bovine democracy, cow, grazing, habits, politics
Pulling the first of 12 joints of 20’ pipe plus the pump this morning after losing water last evening. We weaned our last bunch of calves Thursday when we hauled them out of Greasy, and were celebrating our good fortune until the pump quit. Fortunately, Willits Equipment had time and personnel to replace the pump and control box by 1:00 this afternoon. This well also serves our house.
Just one of the joys of rural living, but we wouldn’t trade it for the alternative.
Midday siesta, I dream of water running
down the Tule, ouzels dipping, or
beer cooling in an eddy on the Kern—
of you and I, our faces streaked with rain
as if we were crying—love in our eyes.
All the mud-stuck trucks, leap-frogging,
winches whining as the clouds cracked,
bursting with more of the same.
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What else can we look forward to
this afternoon, inches from the Solstice,
what else can we do but dream? The air
is thin and burns the lungs. Leaves curl
in the garden while cows commiserate
in the shade of sycamores and oaks,
all their stories stored within rings,
chatter from the good old days.
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And what of native wisdom banked
in their massive trunks, or smooth gossip rocks
in the living Live Oak shade? All the secrets
we have lost to progress, all the important
unimportant things that have not saved time,
but accelerated it and our poor hearts
just trying to keep up. 110 degrees at noon,
what else can we do but dream?
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
Tagged dream, heat, progress, rivers, siesta, tree rings, water, wisdom
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