Category Archives: Ranch Journal

SHADEQUARTER

Posted on February 4, 2016 by | 4 comments

 

We don’t imagine men
who live alone
in the mountains

of ever dying—
we seldom saw them
when alive.

Word trickles down
the watershed:
tracks in fresh snow

where he lay down
forever to become
part of our landscape.

 

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Posted in Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

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Independence, CA

Posted on February 4, 2016 by | 3 comments

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge (2): “Vibrance”

 

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Posted in Elko, Photographs, Ranch Journal

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GROUNDHOG’S DAY: LAST BREAKFAST

Posted on February 2, 2016 by | 2 comments

 

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Robbin and I have made the trek to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, where we were married twenty years ago, so many times that it seems like Groundhog’s Day. We split the 720 mile trip into two days, laying over in Bishop, stopping at the same places for gas and a snack or a meal, the same motel, right down to virtually the same heavy coats and winter shoes. One almost instant replay after another.

Yet always something new, some detail or happenstance to change the course of events, to make every Gathering a little different, a little richer. This year the weather was a player.

 

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Posted in Elko, Photographs, Ranch Journal

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After the Gathering

Posted on January 31, 2016 by | 5 comments

 

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Though the Gathering has evolved in many ways over the last three decades, its emotional impact on me seems always the same. The music, poetry and camaraderie of friends heightens the senses, sandpapers the synapses, to leave me vulnerable and more fragile than I’m used to. A catharsis, or cleansing that strips away my everyday defenses to become more uncomfortably human, even on stage.

In yesterday’s session with Amy and Gail Steiger, it was like getting hit by a Mack truck as I informed the audience of Amy’s accomplishments as an author of three books, winner of a Willa Cather award for the first, ‘Rightful Place’, when all the pride I felt for her stuck in my throat, leaving me helpless to speak, helpless to read the poem I dedicated to her after I finished reading ‘Winter of Beauty’. Completely surprised, I was swept up and away into a blurry sea I couldn’t navigate until Joel Nelson in the front row said, “It’s OK, John, we got all morning.”

His steady voice righted me, and after much fumbling for alternate poems, I finally read the piece. Just one of many emotional moments, and just part of Elko’s annual rejuvenation for me.

Prior to the Gathering, I was interviewed by a writer for the Smithsonian: where apparently I failed to truly express the impact of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering on me.

 

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Posted in Elko, Photographs, Ranch Journal

Grass and Rain

Posted on January 25, 2016 by | 7 comments

 

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Not quite déjà vu, Saturday’s sun set under clear skies after another half-inch rain, illuminating the sycamores again, but with less intensity. This is the perspective I wanted for yesterday’s post, but by the time I got to this position, the light was gone. When you’ve got grass and rain, you’ve got time to think about other things.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

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Between Rains

Posted on January 24, 2016 by | 4 comments

 

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The light changes quickly after breaks in the weather. We had just received a half-inch of rain by Tuesday evening as the sun was setting behind the ridge. Overcast in the canyon but clearing in the valley west of us, the sun found a thin slot between the ridge and clouds to spotlight the sycamores along the creek, our dancing girls.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

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ALIVE AGAIN

Posted on January 21, 2016 by | 8 comments

 

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Puffs of cumulous on blue,
naked sycamore ballet, backdrop
of granite rock on tender green—

January after a month of rain,
muddy froth upon the creek
greet me like an old friend.

We pick up where we left off
as if drought never happened,
each afloat in one another’s eyes

applauding our survival—and
the genius of persevering seed
clinging through the years of dust

without rain—our moment now
just to look, inhale the scent
of breath and flesh, alive again.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

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WINTER SYCAMORES

Posted on January 20, 2016 by | 2 comments

 

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These silent spirits frolicking
for centuries along the creek
rooted, yet reaching for more light
that only naked can I see
each time they changed their minds—
with each petticoat pooled dry
and blown away from their feet.

Drawn to their wild dance
of indecision, each fickle fantasy
grown smooth with balanced grace,
I am moved to forget the price
of being human and must join them
upon the green beneath the gray
to greet the ghosts gone-on before me.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

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Fuller Branding, North Ranch 2016

Posted on January 19, 2016 by | 5 comments

 

 

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

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Sabbath Branding

Posted on January 18, 2016 by | 5 comments

 

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Rain has been the recurring forecast with measureable amounts on over half of the last thirty days, pleasant and needed relief from four years of drought. Picking a day to brand is tricky business, usually requiring a day or two before to gather the cows and calves off steep, slick hillsides. Putting a crew of neighbors together to help often conflicts with their own branding schedules. Then the planning of a meal, perishables hanging in limbo to feed friends afterwards, keeps us tuned to the TV and several weather Internet sites for a composite report to insure we won’t be rained out before we go for it. But no one complains. Robbin jokes that when the call goes out, “We’re having a picnic, bring your horse.”

Yesterday’s approaching storm cloaked the canyon in soft ethereal gray, muted morning light where it narrows four miles above us at the Buzzard Roost Fire Control Road, corrals deep within its walls of almost-iridescent green, large ghostlike patches of naked Buckeyes on the north slopes, surrounded by skeletons of leafless Blue Oaks, some dead, some alive.

A perfect day for us to help Steve and Jody Fuller brand, I’m told that everything goes with green and gray.

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: “Alphabet”

 

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

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