Category Archives: Ranch Journal

California Jewelflower Caulanthus californicus

Posted on February 14, 2016 by John | 2 comments

While gathering to brand last week, the girls and I noticed a wildflower we’ve never seen before. Identified from Calflora photos this morning, I learned that the California Jewelflower is listed by USA and California as ‘Rare and Endangered’. No sighting recorded before in this part of Tulare County. One must assume that that the seeds have been banked for years until our current weather conditions germinated them.

HOLD THE PHONE: misidentified, according to the Jepson manual. Jagged leaves and bristly hair on stems = Caulanthus coulteri, neither rare or endangered, but new to us.

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged California Jewelflower, Caulanthus californicus

FROM THE HEART

Posted on February 14, 2016 by John | 5 comments

Sonnets scribed throughout the ages
& verses penned on crumpled pages
declare the vagaries of the heart—
but we who write, how do we start
to shape those things into a line?
Could Robbin be my Valentine?

A catch-all, cure-all phrase at best,
a store-bought, hard-fought way to test
not only revenue from emotion,
or pocket change to renew devotion—
but a day for shy to offer sign,
ask: would you be my Valentine?

“What the hell’s it mean?” I pray.
Does it include what I want to say?
Or imitate the horndog’s sound,
or a spot for dreams to pulse and pound
or become a word to brand as “mine”?
“Now baby you’re my Valentine?”

Or a poet’s time to wax eternal
grace angelic drawn to abnormal
metamorphic gross proportions,
or worse yet, shallow contortions
comfort claims to be divine—
who’d really want a Valentine?

Yet through it all, you have acquired
my great respect. I have admired
the human being I know as you,
I know as nothing less than true—
& here I am at the bottom line:
would you be my Valentine?

I found this card in its original envelope on my desk this morning, postmarked February 13, 1995. Good friends for several years, I took a chance to declare an interest beyond friendship that Robbin confesses unsettled her at the time. Instead of a hallmark, it reads: ‘HOMEMADE IN A HELLUVA HURRY’.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, ROBBIN!!

5 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Valentine's Day 1995

Great Basin Revisited

Posted on February 13, 2016 by John | 5 comments

Robbin and I have been crossing the Great Basin from Tonopah to Carlin in January for twenty years, choosing the longer route to Elko instead of I-99 towards Sacramento congestion and Donner Pass. Once known as the World’s Loneliest Highway, going home we met only a couple of vehicles on Highway 278 towards Eureka, Monday morning February 1st, after Sunday’s storm.

Twenty years ago, everyone waved a passing hello when meeting a vehicle on these back roads, but the habit seems to have waned in the past few years. I never fail to wonder about the first wagon crossings, the weeks it took to overcome this high desert expanse, the people, their courage and endurance, as they made the trek. How many of us today would have done as well, invested the patience and dedication to get to a place, presumably California, that they’d never seen?

5 Comments

Posted in Elko, Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged 278, Elko, Garden Pass, Great Basin, snow

Early Poppies

Posted on February 11, 2016 by John | 5 comments

After four days in the 70s, 10 degrees above average, the wildflowers are popping everywhere. These across the creek from the house may be only the beginning, white popcorn flowers following suit. Stay tuned.

5 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Golden Poppies, Popcorn Flowers

February 10, 2016

Posted on February 10, 2016 by John | 1 comment

Temperatures in the single digits, we left blowing snow outside Tonopah a week ago in Nevada’s Great Basin. Since we have gathered our last bunch of cows and calves to brand this morning to a forecast high of 76°. Here the hillsides are green, spattered with early patches of golden poppies and fiddleneck, as white popcorn flowers begin to creep up the lower slopes. The visual and mental contrasts from Elko to Dry Creek are startling, two different worlds either side of the Great Western Divide within a week’s time.

1 Comment

Posted in Elko, Ranch Journal

Tagged branding, Great Basin, Sierra Nevada, snow, spring, wildflowers, winter

WELL PLACED

Posted on February 9, 2016 by John | 3 comments

                                                            the world
                              lives in the death of speech
                              and sings there.
                                             ~ Wendell Berry (“The Silence”)

My time is here
within the details—
small tracks that whisper words

I’ve yet to say or spell,
a great expanse opening
new frontiers beyond

the clatter, the cacophony
of commerce, the pomposity
of puppets geared

to create more fear.
Talons latch and lock,
tumble carelessly

with confidence—young
eagles playing, practicing
pinwheels in the canyon

beyond the corrals.
There is no sound
from my open mouth

as they disappear
behind your hat, your horse,
Earl’s board fence

and our cows wanting
to get along.
No time to say

what will never be enough
or too much
before it’s over.

3 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

Tagged corrals, eagles, Railroad, speech, Wendell Berry

Got Weeds!

Posted on February 8, 2016 by John | 1 comment

Malva neglecta, Common Mallow, Cheeseweed, doing well.

We, as well as all of our neighbors, are busy branding or gathering to brand before the next forecast wave of El Niño arrives in the middle of next week. Hampered by the good fortune of past rains, we’re behind schedule. The grass is growing, cows milking well, calves now range over 400 pounds that is tough on ground crews and horses, as well as the calves. Depending on one another’s help to brand takes planning with an unmistakable sense of urgency in the air to get the work done. We’re planning to brand Wednesday, but not before helping a neighbor brand on Tuesday so he and his ground crew can help us.

But we’ve got weeds. The Common Mallow loves disturbed ground, and a scourge in places where cattle gather and chew their cuds. Not surprisingly, Malva neglecta has a long history of medicinal uses. Friday, I encountered a healthy patch that obscured the road as I left Dry Creek to scout the Top before meeting Clarence and the girls in our gather. All but one cow gathered or accounted for as of yesterday, we hope they stay until Wednesday.

How ‘bout those Super Broncos? What an intense defense!!