Category Archives: Ranch Journal

GATHERING TO BRAND

Posted on December 19, 2015 by | Leave a comment

 

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Neighbors visiting
behind young girls and babies
headed to the gate.

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: “Gathering”

 

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Belle Point Bunch Branding

Posted on December 18, 2015 by | 11 comments

 

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A beautiful day to brand some nice calves with the help of good neighbors.

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2015 CHRISTMAS LETTER TO PAUL ZARZYSKI

Posted on December 17, 2015 by | 9 comments

 

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Dear Paul, the sycamores are undressing
long white limbs, a slow strip tease of fiery leaves
along the creek, my chorus line of dancing nymphs
all these years awaiting storms—but hills are green,
cordwood stacked and banked in thick dry rounds
beside the splitter, hay in the barn, meat in the freezer.
We will be warm with family this Christmas,
come hell or high water—grandpa free
to be a gap-toothed troll if need be.
We come of age all-of-a-sudden, spur
or spurn propriety in slow-motion rides,
get our kicks and licks in where and while we can.

The grizzled old natives never left this ground,
never quite made it past the ridgelines
we rode together busting wild cattle
off rock-piled chemise into the open places
we’ll always gather, build a fire and camp
for eternity—for as long as I remember,
become this ground that claims my flesh.
Slow-sipped days, a joyous plodding now
from moment to moment navigating rains
and grass, old neighbors branding calves
one at a time to stay to see a perfect season—
or as close as we can get, it’s how we make it.
Merry Christmas. John

P.S. Thanks for Montana Quarterly—a luxury
to fish during California’s Dust Bowl—a godsend.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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THE UNDRESSING: ANTICIPATION

Posted on December 16, 2015 by | Leave a comment

 

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On the weather map,
a week of storms
four days out

turned down
to a heavy mist
to quell the flames

before the downpour,
wind and rain—
a tame disrobing

before a shower
of leaves that leave
the road between

barbed wire fences
full to the hubcaps
with bedclothes.

 

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THE UNDRESSING

Posted on December 15, 2015 by | 3 comments

 

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Show starts at two
across the road
with wind and rain—

girls shedding
enflamed leaves
in a slow strip tease

of fire exposing
long white limbs
in a chorus line

of dancing nymphs
along the creek
all ready to go

skinny-dipping
come hell
or high water.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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Hello, El Niño

Posted on December 10, 2015 by | 8 comments

 

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Old People Slow

Posted on December 10, 2015 by | 1 comment

 

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With the help of mostly the same neighbors every year, our branding at the Paregien Ranch is special. The year it snowed, or the year we couldn’t see across the branding pen in the fog, or Kenny and Virginia McKee eating a hamburger afterwards under their ponchos as the rain came down so hard we weren’t sure we would get off the mountain.

Adding to the branding’s uniqueness, two Blue Oaks grow in the middle of the branding pen—good shade, but potentially dangerous obstacles that require control of your horse and the calf on a short rope. Of all the oaks that have died during our prolonged drought, these two thrive. Every year we discuss removing one or both, but plans to improve these corrals will incorporate one of them within a new panel fence.

Also, our brandings are fairly tame, and small, with less calves than usual this year with our reduced number of cows. And we go slowly, one calf down at a time with most of us up in years enough to draw Social Security. “Old people slow,” I apologized to Doug Thomason after his first day helping us five or six years ago.

“I like slow,” he replied matter-of-factly.

And we’re all happy with that.

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State of the Sierras

Posted on December 6, 2015 by | 4 comments

 

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Looking over Dry Creek and Kaweah River watersheds to the Kaweah and Sawtooth Peaks on my way down from the Paregien Ranch with a Kubota load of oak after gathering cows and calves to brand on Tuesday. Beautiful Sunday, but accumulated snow is light. Talk of the long-awaited El Niño influence is sounding surer from local weathermen as they predict rain for Thursday-Friday and Sunday-Monday.

We have lots of choices to begin our branding season, but opted for the climb up the hill to the Paregien Ranch in case we get a series of rains that might make our road impassable. Here we go!

 

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BULLS

Posted on December 3, 2015 by | 4 comments

 

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                                        They kinda put themselves out.
                                             – Art Tarbell

All the barbed wire,
tight fences, gates
and management plans

sag under the weight
of errant bulls.
It’s in the air

come December:
canyon bellows
dusk and dawn.

Latest genetic
work assignments
on paper only.

                    ~

Any notion we may have had about putting our bulls out two weeks later is coming undone, under pressure of habit. A building crescendo of primal bellows in the canyon for the past three weeks has grown from chuckles to fixing fence and relocating errant bulls. Rather than fight nature and fix fence we’ve acquiesced to putting some bulls out now with the cows.

Two weeks ago one of our young bulls found the neighbor’s virgin heifers waiting for a Wagyu bull arriving mid-December. Rather then fix fence twice, we put him with some cows across the road. Monday, one of our older bulls crawled through two fences to find some cows and calves. We removed him and the temptation for the other bulls to another pasture. He then found our virgin heifers waiting for a Wagyu bull, mid-December.

Far from heifers, we put four older bulls out yesterday, four more today. What’s a couple of weeks, anyway?

 

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Happy Thanksgiving!!

Posted on November 26, 2015 by | 16 comments

 

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With much to be thankful for, not the least of which is ample rain to get the grass started, Robbin and I wish everyone a good-sized portion of our gratefulness.

 

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