We trust the rain,
the early stirring of colored leaves,
our synapses electrified
before it leaks from the gray—
storms absorbed, the darkening
of settled dust as the wet thatch
of old feed folds
to hold the damp explosion
of open-handed cotyledons—
renewed miracles of life,
iridescent greens become tall
heads heavy with seed
to feed ourselves and others,
the wild and tame, crazed and sane
denizens of this planet.
We trust in rain.
We pray for rain
and wait.
Posted in Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged photography, poetry, rain, weather
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
With so many holes in my memory
what remains seems like yesterday.
I jettisoned the shameful first,
then turned the irrational loose
to make room for the moment
before it slips away.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Cord McKee, memory, moment, photography, poetry
It sounds like a drug
for the infirmed
or a dressing for horses’ hooves
or a government program
to keep poverty alive
and consuming—
it sounds soothing
to the summer-baked subconscious,
a galactic reprieve
before the leaves rain
in gusts
before the first storm
stirs weathered flesh.
Autumnal Equinox
just rolls off the tongue.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged autumnal equinox, photography, poetry
September 16, 2024 – #8043 Rocky – Chuck Fry Photo
September 17, 2024 – #8088 – Paregien – JCD Photo
for Age & Source Verification
A little more anticipation, it seems, as we’re calving 2 weeks later hoping to take advantage of cooler weather.
Dilated and making bag,
first-calf heifers choose to graze,
closer to our familiar voices
over morning coffee. Perhaps security,
or our loving pride they feel
long distance as we imagine
a pasture full of calves clinging
to a mother’s shadow, the buck and run
as they get older like the thirty years
before them. We begin another season
of grass with rain, with feeding hay
ready to face the future with them.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, Calving, family, first-calf heifers, photography, poetry
With 5 different Edison meters for house and pumps, our mailbox has been full of these notices , one for each, for the past three weeks, usually two daily outages per week. Edison has noticed us for two more outages within the next week as they replace power poles and wire on this five mile stretch of Dry Creek Road. No power, no AC, no pumps and no water for man or beast during this “Heat Advisory” forecast near 110 degrees.
We grin and bear it and try to get along, which means pulling the refrigerator out of its cabinet, unplugging it, then after a few minutes, plugging it back in. We’ve lost about $800 worth of food thus far, but the freezers have come back on without assistance. I’ve learned to anticipate the timing of the outage to shut the water off to the house, which would be drained otherwise and filing with air to be compressed when the juice comes back on with pressures high enough to jeopardize our plumbing.
The contractors (ParWest) have been great, with the exception of an underground services employee who was driving our firebreaks after he left the gate open to the road for 46 first-calf heifers. He did get an earful.
Of course, all this concern comes after PG&E’s bankruptcy when its transmission lines ignited numerous fires in Northern California after which nearly half of the state became a high fire risk area. Fire insurance doubled or tripled or left homes uninsurable. Edison will probably lobby the PUC to raise its rates to pay for all this maintenance it should have doing all along. C’est la vie.
Posted in Ranch Journal
Tagged heat advisory, ParWest, power, Southern California Edison, water
After a brutal summer, we are enjoying a major change in temperature: a high of 87 yesterday and 55 this morning as storms hit the northwest and Canada.
As I’ve posted before, my father’s model for predicting the weather was based on a 30-day cycle beginning with noticeable changes in the month of August. If these changes were confirmed in September, he would count on rain on those days in October and/or November. My brother and I still rely to some degree on his model, but with the volatility of the weather in recent years, it’s anyone’s guess.
We’ve begun feeding as we wait for our first calves to arrive. We’ve moved our calving date back two weeks, from the first to the fifteenth, in response to the trend of high temperatures in early September. Not only is the heat hard on calving cows, but often there’s always a couple of first-calf heifers that leave their newborns in a hundred degree sun.
September also brings the catalogs for bull sales in California that offer a wide array of Genomic Enhanced Expected Progeny Data as well as links to videos of the bulls. I still rely on my eye, but it’s a far cry from the old days when I was starting out.
As the days get shorter, we still expect the temperatures to return to the century mark, but for the moment it’s delightful.
Only one day since the Solstice has the temperature been below 100 degrees, 54 days with a high over 116. Tough on man and beast. With a slight weather change, yesterday was 99. We’ve been rising early to feed the bulls and heifers and try to be done with our chores before 11:00 a.m.
drycrikjournal 