Early yet in an early spring,
growing patches, orange-gold,
claim open slopes like flames,
Fiddleneck between gray skeletons
of Blue Oaks pushing bud,
feathery translucent leaves
where the gods walk ridges,
wave hands to paint,
adding color to hillside green
we’ve not seen tall in years.
Out of dust and naked dirt,
new mosaics, lush with moments,
openings for everything put off
in drouth—real work we absorb,
take our sweet time to recognize.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Blue Oak, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, real work, time, weather, weekly-photo-challenge, wildflowers
February 24, 2015
March 3, 2015
March 3, 2015
March 3, 2015
I first spotted these flowers in March 2012, misidentifying them as Hill Sun Cups, then, due to drought conditions, only saw them briefly again in 2014. At two locations across the creek and east of the house about 1/4 mile, they began blooming in late February of 2015.
According to the Calflora map, this is the northernmost sighting west of the Sierras. Not a rare species, if confines itself to Southern California and east of the Sierras. Always nice to find a wildflower established beyond its normal range.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, Eschscholzia minutiflora, photographs, Pygmy Poppy, wildflowers
Gilia Tricolor – March 3, 2015
Everyone wants a turn
to be in perfect focus,
too many to count.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Bird's Eye Gilia, Gilia Tricolor, Greasy Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, wildflowers
Hard to concentrate
under the camera lens
interrupting work.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Agoseris, bugs, Dandelion, flower-friday, Greasy Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, wildflowers, wildlife
Haven’t wondered about Heaven
since Sunday school’s cold
pearly gates and alabaster walls
seemed drab by comparison,
and the blinding shine of silver
and gold eternities much too bright
even for the pure. Out of dust
and dirt we rise, generations
personified in living colors.
We need not preach poetry
or pray for more than what’s
before us full with awe—
small enough to see through
purple stems of Wild Hyacinth
on green, on gray—I believe.
Top of Sulphur – March 3, 2015
…you’re not the only ones
who don’t get ‘em all
gathered and branded:
mothers friends, born
and raised together
in trees tangled with brush,
running mates escaping
the Horse Lot in Greasy.
You were there when
they bolted at the sight
of more cowboys
than they’d ever seen—
panicked partners on a whim
hell bent through the fence
for the safety of home
will never know the ropes,
our hot iron or knife,
headache of dehorning
for the fifty pounds
of recuperation. Not worth
it now to anyone.
for Virginia McKee
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged branding, Calves, cows, photographs, poetry, ranch economics, reward, slicks, Sulphur Peak, weekly-photo-challenge
Sierra Shooting Star (Dodecatheon jeffreyi) – March 3, 2015
No wildflower man, but of all he saw
worth a mention once or twice
in his lifetime—suggesting value
in the time invested for a boy’s
inspection. Too delicate to touch,
what could we know of grace
refined by harsh survival,
each tangent honed to fit and fly
by millennia of failures?
Perhaps heaven-sent by night
to find transcending daylight
well-apart from the myopic zeal
of mortals, these long stems arched
above the grass on steep and damp
north slopes just waiting to be seen.
Perfect for early bloomers,
Fiddleneck, White-veined Mallow,
London Rockets pale the pasture.
Rain in the ground, thick Filaree
overreaches like loose-fringed
lettuce for more—more of the same.
Grass ahead of the cattle, it’s war—
every seed battling for real estate,
real dirt damp, for sun and rain,
green hills puddled with spilt paint.
Everything perfect on it’s own, yet
I fret with the brittle momentum
of lean, dry years—months of dust
and hay—a hard pace that interferes
with becoming forgiving as this ground
exploding in all the colors of rain.
Desperately, I reach through
early morning black for light.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, resilience, water, weather, wildflowers
Slick-eared,
she went ungathered,
missed the party,
missed the branding
ropes and vaccinations—
they wear the same look.
Not wild-eyed, but
about half-guilty,
half-sad they didn’t
RSVP. Still a chance
she’ll make the cowherd
like her mother.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged branding, Calves, cows, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry
Oxalis pes-caprae – March 1, 2015
Non-native invasive,
clusters of yellow spill down
draws along the road.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Bermuda Buttercup, Dry Creek, haiku, Invasive, Non-native, Oxalis pes-caprae, photographs, poetry, weather, wildflowers
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