First rain
the gophers clean their houses,
stack tailings high
where the Great Blues wait,
stand like statues,
like soldiers across the pasture
for the slightest movement
of well-worked mounds
to stab a meal—then toss it up,
catch open-beaked
and let it slide
down a snaky neck.
My father loved them,
loved the fact
they were working for him.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry
Tagged Dry Creek, gophers, Great Blue Herons, photography, poetry, rain
Beyond these Chinese solar lights,
wide tracts of black
beneath the storm front
that shrouds the mountains,
our cows and calves
curled upon the green.
Tiny plastic suns and moons
charged with yesterday’s sunshine
defy the night,
defy the news,
defy the wolves
always circling
around our fire.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry
Tagged night, photography, poetry, SOLAR LIGHTS, wolves
They did not care when
Sir Francis Drake claimed them
for the Queen, or when the Spanish
held and lost them
to the Mexicans
and their vaqueros—
they did not care
when Bequettes brought
the first Devins in
to shade beneath their canopies
along the creek—
they did not care.
Long white limbs,
they will dance for anyone
once they lose their leaves.
* * * *
The Sycamore Alluvial Woodland on Dry Creek is the third largest in the world and the largest in the Sierra Nevada Ecoregion.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photography, poetry, Sycamore Alluvial Woodland
A little rain,
a little green,
a little cold
short of a December freeze
my girls dress
in fiery colors
along the creek trickling
before winter’s strip-tease:
long limbs reaching
from the clothes at their feet.
Some trees have drunk
more than they can hold,
dropping limbs on fences—
but nimble and sylphlike,
they have shown a millennium
a glimpse of sensual grace.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
It’s chilly in the morning (40s), foggy in the Valley after the 1.81” we received from the tail of the Bomb Cyclone earlier this week. Normally, the ridge between Dry Creek and Antelope Valley keeps the fog out, allowing more sunshine for our fresh cotyledons. What a beautiful day, the sycamores are turning as winter knocks on the door.
We’ve been feeding lots of alfalfa trying to keep the cows with calves and replacement heifers in shape enough to cycle before breeding. We’re in the process of getting the bulls out now. With no forecast rains, we’ll begin branding soon.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged bulls, heifers, photography, rain, weather
Among the old timers
I tried my hand at similes
after a good slow rain
when it was warm and wet enough
to start the grass, they'd say
“thick as hair on a dog’s back.”
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged photography, poetry, rain, weather
1.
Honed peaks and ridges
cut the clear blue sky
and lagging cumulus rising
between storms,
as we await the tail
of a Bomb Cyclone
predicted for our metal roof
with coffee before daylight—
or so we pray.
2.
Slow in—slow out.
Gray clouds clinging
to the hillsides,
four hundredths all day—
58 high,
52 low after
an all-night soaker
with little runoff
to start the grass.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged photography, poetry, rain, weather
Exeter, California mural painted by Morgan McCall and Mitchell-Veyna in 1996
He ain't got no loan
Cant grow no corn
He ain't got no loan
- Levon Helm (“Poor Old Dirt Farmer”)
A cattlemen’s get-together,
a fund-raising dinner—awards
and not-so-silent auctions
at the end of summer
before the calves come,
to rub shoulders with the neighbors
who’ve gotten older
or by surprise disappeared
altogether
like the uneven ground shrinking
for grazing cattle
and our flat ground sinking
with too much pumping
on the same old cow.
The banks are nervous
with farm ground worth
half of what it was
without water
to plant and raise a crop
to feed us
and pay the growing costs
(plus taxes and interest)
and threaten to foreclose
on homesteads with row crops
or orchards in piles
that have become bare ground
to develop, for speculators
to make small fortunes
for corporate investors.
Mom and Pop
have moved to town,
following the kids
the land couldn’t support—
but it’ll be so much easier
for everyone to shop
for third world groceries
at the Wall Street outlets.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry
Tagged agriculture, banks, farms, food, loans, photography, poetry, SGMA, subsidence, Sustainable Groundwater management Act, water
Hunter’s Supermoon – Photo: Robbin’s I-Phone
Inhaling darkness spiked with chilled silence
soothes the synapses, spares the soul
with deep breaths released to space
beyond this combative planet and its grumbling
eruptions, its mindless explosions
of patriotic hatred. Ingesting the cool blackness
purifies a moment, relief on an early morning
clean slate to begin with, to try again
to write something worth reading.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Hunter's Moon, photography, poetry, Supermoon
drycrikjournal 