Category Archives: Ranch Journal

TASTE OF PEACH

Posted on July 22, 2015 by John | 2 comments

The Elberta ripens
thinned by ground squirrels—
dogs bark at night:
raccoons down from the hills.

I have lost my car again
trapped in another strange place
without friends, backtracking
in my dreams to rise

in the dark, fumble
for a light too bright
to find my way outside
to follow the dogs with a rifle

to the gate beside the peach tree.
No eyes burning in the black,
barking fades out of range,
I am now awake

and wonder what it takes
to save a peach,
or why we bother—
other than its taste.

2 Comments

Posted in Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

Tagged dogs, ground squirrels, peach tree, raccoons

GIANT

Posted on July 21, 2015 by John | 2 comments

Checking water, hillside springs
plumbed to troughs, a coyote pup,
on the lope and looking back

as if heading home, is common.
Beyond the den, this is his home,
this is his water—we are

unknown intruders, enigmas
making rounds in these hills,
following trails to waterholes

where wild waits
and congregates
as it shrinks into August.

With our eye, we measure
flow at the end of rusty pipe—
with our lungs, blow water

backwards to the spring box
to clear debris and sediment,
seldom clean. Yesterday,

I got to be giant
with two tree frogs dancing
on my tongue.

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

Tagged coyote, Ragle Spring, tree frogs, water, wildlife

BLACK-WHITE FACE

Posted on July 21, 2015 by John | 7 comments

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

WPC (2) ‘Half & Half’

7 Comments

Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Black-White Face, heterosis, hybrid vigor, weekly-photo-challenge

HALF & HALF

Posted on July 20, 2015 by John | 9 comments

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

WPC (1) ‘Half & Half’

9 Comments

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

Tagged Drought, fences, grass, grazing, weekly-photo-challenge

108 Degrees

Posted on July 18, 2015 by John | 4 comments

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.

4 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

PICKING PEACHES GREEN

Posted on July 16, 2015 by John | 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

3 Comments

Posted in Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

Tagged buzzards, crows, ground squirrels, peaches

Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) Visits Dry Creek

Posted on July 15, 2015 by John | 8 comments

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!

(Spooked a bullfrog!)

8 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Glossy Ibis, Plegadis falcinellus

YEAR OF THE FROG

Posted on July 14, 2015 by John | 4 comments

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

4 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

Tagged El Niño, old farmers, signs, tree frogs, water wells, well drilling rigs

Ranch Journal: 2015 Replacement Heifers

Posted on July 13, 2015 by John | 5 comments

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.