We know better than to claim
success when the grass is belly-high
and Dry Creek runs year-round.
We know the fickle temperament
of the wild gods and goddesses
who have few rules and no obligations
to monied interests, no crusades
to justify their integrity: certain
dominion over man’s campaigns
to domesticate their nature
for a dollar—that will, in time, undermine
humanity’s conceit for much less.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025
Tagged nature, photography, poetry, politics, power, weather
Dim light above the kitchen table,
wet wedding rings beneath ceramic coffee cups,
shod horses fidget in the aluminum gooseneck
outside before daylight.
“Are Bud and Monte comin’?”
“Nope, just you and me, Babe,” he grins
showing teeth beneath his moustache.
“Any stars?” she asks. “It’s s’posed to rain,
you know, sometime today.”
“A few holes in the clouds is all,”
as he looks up at the ceiling.
“With a little luck
we ought to make it up the hill
before it gets slick,
get the cattle down
and be home by the fire
before it gets too wet.”
After a pause and long swallow, she asks,
“You know what day it is?”
“Thursday, I think”
“Is that all?” she lets trail on her way to the sink.
“Oh, I’ll be goddamned:
Happy Valentine’s Day!”
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019, Ranch Journal
Tagged photography, poetry, rain, Valentine's Day, weather
1.
Crows circle,
coyotes skulk
and a Red Tail watches
on a bare oak branch
for a ground squirrel
to wake and warm
atop a rock at dawn.
Everybody’s hungry
in February.
2.
Cold marble ceiling,
precursor to another
stream of storms predicted
to test the levees,
erase the landscapes
of man’s mistakes,
but likely missing
a golden opportunity
for humanity.
3.
The imbalanced weight
of man’s achievements
and herded hostilities
wobbles the planet’s
tipsy equilibrium
between war and peace,
the struggle for power
over Nature
to right herself.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry
Tagged development, Humanity, nature, photography, poetry, politics, power, weather
Far from the advertised Atmospheric River forecast, we are grateful for the much needed moisture overnight. Just a sprinkle when Robbin took this photograph yesterday evening as sunshine leaked through the approaching clouds.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric River, photographs, rain, water, weather
Mt. Tamalpais – L.E. Rea (1868-1927)
There are no windows on the south wall
to let the sun’s heat into a hot summer room,
but a 3’ x 5’ L. E. Rea painting framed
of Mt. Tam I thought was Montana
when I was a boy in my grandfather’s house
hanging above the mantle over the blazing,
hairy arms of grapevines pruned, hauled
and piled for the winter by the barn
with the remains of corrals for draft
horses and mules back in the day—that
my sister and I damned-near burned down
playing with matches. The fire trucks came
at dusk from town, sirens screaming closer
before I ever saw the flames.
Sunlight through mottled clouds
on the hillside near begs my eyes to stay.
Its bare, steep peak drawing me
from my desk to the south wall
like a window to a better place.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry
Tagged better place, L.E.REA, Mt. Tamalpais, painting
Night showers, cold damp dawn,
intense coyote octaves shrill—an eerie
screaming claims the canyon
as I search for forgotten details
for the morning’s branding,
worried for baby calves
before the crew arrives
for coffee and last minute
plans. What rarity has triggered
this assault on silence, what wild
imperative, what joy requires
such passionate agreement?
What have I missed
not learning the language
after fifty-five years?
I really dislike word press. I have wasted too much time today simply trying to pass along a comment on your blog entry today about coyotes. Before I moved to la la land north, at the ranch I used to enjoy this vocal minority calling to each other from valley floor (even if at times it sounded as if it was coming from just outside our bedroom window) to the upper hills and then beyond into the canyons and back again. Lonely. Eerie. Beautiful.
Keep on writing, my friend. You weave beautiful poetry beyond telling city folks about life (mostly work) on the ranch up Dry Creek Road.
s
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, Ranch Journal
Tagged coyotes, Dry Creek, photography, plaace, poetry, silence
Robbin’s iPhoto. Pictured with me: Shawn Fox & Chuck Fry
I was weaned on a copy of the Teco calf table and my job at six or seven was to push the calves up a narrow chute through the sliding gate to the table. My dad was on one side and Clarence Holdbrooks on the other. Clarence would catch the head and squeeze the body of the calf, and then tip the table into a horizontal position. My dad would put a rope around the back feet of the calf and stretch them tight to make it immobile so the bull calves could be castrated and all the calves branded, vaccinated and ear marked. Once done, the table would be tipped to a vertical position and the calf released. The three of us, two men and a boy, would brand 50 head in about 2 hours.
The calves were small, but I learned a lot from the back side of those calves. Of course my denim jeans would be covered with shit. Naturally the calves would often kick me, but I learned that the closer I got to the calf the less the kick would hurt as opposed to standing back and getting the full force of the kick.
Branding on the calf table wasn’t much fun compared to roping the calves a horseback, so by the time I got my own cows, we headed, heeled and stretched them out for the process. And so it went for fifty years here, a crew of the neighbors branding one another’s calves—trading labor.
I remember branding calves for Forrest Homer in a 20’ x 20’ board pen where you needed to know how to throw a trap with your heel rope. But since then the corrals have gotten larger and the action quicker to where today’s brandings have become more like team ropings that are harder on the calves, so much so that Robbin and I have gone back to using the calf table.
Robbin’s iPhoto. Terri Blanke, Allie Fox, Tammi Rivas
Light rain like fog
gray in the canyon
closes the world away—
privacy to contemplate
the prolonged moment
that asks no questions
of the no one
you have become
among the mountains.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Gabe Arroyo would make his rounds
like a jovial Santa at Christmas
with a pickup load of honey and Patron
on the ranches where he kept his hives
for the winter—have an early morning toast
to the New Year:
1 generous shot of Tequilla
2 shots of fresh-squeezed orange juice
in a glass of pomegranate nectar
leftover from Robbin’s jelly. He’d get a jar
and we’d have another round or so
his son-in-law could drive him home.
Gabe’s gone, but we make merry
with his holiday spirit
as if he were still here.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Christmas, Gabe Arroyo, honey, New Years, old days, photography, poetry, recipe, tequila
Last year’s fine hair,
dry and hollow-stemmed
screens renewed green
sheltered in rocks
that once were one
mind, one set of eyes
to record the wild cycle
of new roots from old
seeds of life — hope
and grace apart
from the rubble
of mankind.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photography, poetry, rain, rocks, seed, weather, wild
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