Category Archives: Ranch Journal

BLACK-WHITE FACE

Posted on July 21, 2015 by | 7 comments

 

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The best of both breeds,
hybrid vigor well-beyond
their English parents.

 

 

 

WPC (2) ‘Half & Half’

 

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Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Ranch Journal

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HALF & HALF

Posted on July 20, 2015 by | 9 comments

 

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Half full, half empty—
but differing perspectives
to prove fences work.

 

 

 

WPC (1) ‘Half & Half’

 

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Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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108 Degrees

Posted on July 18, 2015 by | 4 comments

 

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None of the girls seemed opposed to having a little party yesterday now that our cattle work was done. Allie Fry, who is heading off to Fresno State next week, wanted to learn to rope and Terri Blanke, who coaches the youngsters before the Three Rivers Lions Club Team Roping, is helping her with the basics that evolved into a competition that included Robbin and I. An athletic quick study, Allie surprised us all.

We smoked pork ribs all afternoon, put eggplant and peppers on the barbecue, then put wild blackberries that Allie and I picked after feeding and irrigating in the morning on vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Thank you girls, we got the work done.

 

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

PICKING PEACHES GREEN

Posted on July 16, 2015 by | 3 comments

 

Behind our back, ground squirrels
crawling on their bellies raid
the peach tree, an Elberta with huge

fruit starting to color that bob
and bounce across the pasture,
bigger than the heads that run

with them gripped in yellow teeth.
Come evening, a flutter of black
feathers, our resident pair of crows

dining at the fence line on scattered
cadavers, fuzzy lumps awaiting
buzzards for breakfast.

Everyone trying to make a living,
nothing goes to waste,
not even peaches.

                                        – for Mas Masumoto

 

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Posted in Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) Visits Dry Creek

Posted on July 15, 2015 by | 8 comments

 

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Perhaps this Glossy Ibis arrived with the monsoonal flow out of the Caribbean last week, as they are common to the East Coast. Often referred to as Black Curlews, they are shaped differently than our plumper and partridge-like Long Billed Curlews and behave more like Great Egrets and Blue Herons as shallow wading birds, though smaller than both. Try as I might to record this sighting with ebird, I failed. What distribution maps I found indicate no sightings in Central California. Amazing what you see when irrigating!

 

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(Spooked a bullfrog!)

 

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YEAR OF THE FROG

Posted on July 14, 2015 by | 4 comments

 

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My brother, the old farmer, says
that it’s about over, that out
in the Valley where I seldom stray,

brand new drilling rigs rise
every two miles above the orchards,
out of corn fields reaching past

underground rivers that have lost
their way—like locusts, like aliens
descended to pound and perforate

the earth with steel, pneumatic
proboscises, they shine
through sun and starlight.

In the garden, the damp earth
moves, as if alive, with tree frogs
and toads traveling the shade

from flower leaf to vegetable
like a plague, like a sign
at the end of farming

or this drought, or for El Niño rains?
All the wishing at the wellhead
doesn’t matter to a tree frog.

 

 

Very strong El Niño likely during autumn/winter 2015-2016; significant impacts possible in California

 

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Ranch Journal: 2015 Replacement Heifers

Posted on July 13, 2015 by | 5 comments

 

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Last Friday evening while congratulating ourselves with a cocktail, having finished gathering, weaning, shipping our calves and processing our replacement heifers, Robbin tactfully reminded me that one of the primary purposes of this blog is to keep track of what we do on this ranch–hence this Ranch Journal entry for July 2015.

Looking back to July 2014, we had no replacement heifers to process with so little feed, so we have to go back to July 20, 2013 to see if we are ahead or behind schedule. Less calves and replacement heifers to process after a dry spring this year combined with the late spring rains in 2013 probably account for the difference. But reading the entry for 2013, little else has changed with the drought. We’re now in maintenance mode: irrigating, light feeding, and regularly checking our dwindling stock water at the higher elevations.

Though all received a second round of vaccinations, including Bangs vaccine for Brucellosis, not all of the 75 heifers will make the team. We will cull 5-10 head before turning the Wagyu bulls out in mid-December, depending on how they look. We have moved our calving date back two weeks aiming for mid-September calves, hoping for a little cooler weather. Currently, our 7-weight steers bring the same money as 600 pounders, but with weak demand to turn out on mid-West grass. A later calving date would make them a little lighter and more attractive when we sell them. And we may wait until the 1st of January 2017 to turn our bulls out, as that would also allow our cows an extra month off without a calf, as we would still wean at the end of May. Time will tell, but that’s what we’re thinking now.

So it’s out early in the morning, shade up during the day when we can.

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KEEPING SECRETS

Posted on July 8, 2015 by | 4 comments

 

How do they know, these old fat cows
that read a baggy sadness in my walk
among them checking irons as they pull

alfalfa stems apart to tongue green leaf
in the corral? The gates are set, waiting
for the truck to town. There is nothing

right about the moment, that they know—
little consolation in my voice, they eye me
suspiciously searching for details

in my muted gestures. If I told them
all I know of town, of auction rings
and rails, they would all revolt

for the brushy hills, lay fences down
to take their chances without water
through the summer—that I know.

 

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Posted in Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

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Portraits (4) of a Roadrunner

Posted on July 8, 2015 by | 10 comments

 

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At my desk, a fluttering commotion outside the window. One of our several Roadrunners was trying to attack a metal silhouette of a crow on the window sill.

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In the two feet between us, a screen door and window glass.

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But a few of the many expressions of a Roadrunner…

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…that I thought I’d share.

 

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July Garden 2015

Posted on July 6, 2015 by | 9 comments

 

We’re managing to keep up with garden production. Robbin has made several batches of pickles, some delicious dill, but mostly bread and butter pickles utilizing our new striped Armenians as well as our standard Armenians that are quite crunchy and striking in the same jar.

 

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She also adds some red onions to her pickles as we thin our new onion/raspberry bed.

 

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We are evolving to more container gardening, utilizing our many Rubbermaid water troughs that used to be guaranteed for life, but after three years the company reneged realizing that the plastic material couldn’t withstand the expansion and contraction with our weather nor the pressure of the cattle at water. They all leak.

 

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Our old protein supplement tubs for the cattle make good containers as well.

 

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It’s all about controlling the weeds. With weed cloth deteriorating in the sun, Robbin has tried to salvage a little more life out of it with a covering of decorative bark.

 

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And then the peppers that we barbecue with almost everything, but especially compliment a piece of beef.

 

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Indeed it is a lot of work, very little of which can I take credit.

 

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