Snow on Sulphur

Posted on March 7, 2025 by | Leave a comment 






Snow comes off the mountain
on the backs of trucks,
white caps on compacts





like trophies
to melt on roads
into town—





cold hands
shoveled dirt driveways
steer downhill.











							

	
			

				
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SPILT PAINT


			

				Posted on March 4, 2025 by  | 2 comments
			


				

				











Our canyon gleams
with sunlit shades
of rejuvenated green,





dirt tracks damp
after rain, white skiffs
of popcorn flowers





primed to usurp the flats
and gentle slopes
to divvy up with gilded





fiddleneck before the blue
lupine and golden poppies
display the sloppy guise





of springtime’s spilt paint
for photographs, daydreams
and April showers.











							

	
			

				
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						Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal					

															

		


		
	


			

			
WE KNOW BETTER


			

				Posted on February 21, 2025 by  | 2 comments
			


				

				











We know better than to claim
success when the grass is belly-high
and Dry Creek runs year-round.





We know the fickle temperament
of the wild gods and goddesses
who have few rules and no obligations





to monied interests, no crusades
to justify their integrity: certain
dominion over man’s campaigns





to domesticate their nature
for a dollar—that will, in time, undermine
humanity’s conceit for much less.











							

	
			

				
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ADDENDUM


			

				Posted on February 14, 2025 by  | 3 comments
			


				

				











Dim light above the kitchen table,
wet wedding rings beneath ceramic coffee cups,
shod horses fidget in the aluminum gooseneck
outside before daylight.





“Are Bud and Monte comin’?”
“Nope, just you and me, Babe,” he grins
showing teeth beneath his moustache.





“Any stars?” she asks. “It’s s’posed to rain,
you know, sometime today.”





“A few holes in the clouds is all,”
as he looks up at the ceiling.





“With a little luck
we ought to make it up the hill
before it gets slick,
get the cattle down
and be home by the fire
before it gets too wet.”





After a pause and long swallow, she asks,
“You know what day it is?”





“Thursday, I think”





“Is that all?” she lets trail on her way to the sink.
“Oh, I’ll be goddamned:





Happy Valentine’s Day!”











							

	
			

				
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						Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019, Ranch Journal					

								
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ON A GRAY DAY


			

				Posted on February 10, 2025 by  | 1 comment
			


				

				











1.
Crows circle,
coyotes skulk
and a Red Tail watches





on a bare oak branch
for a ground squirrel
to wake and warm





atop a rock at dawn.
Everybody’s hungry
in February.





2.
Cold marble ceiling,
precursor to another
stream of storms predicted





to test the levees,
erase the landscapes
of man’s mistakes,





but likely missing
a golden opportunity
for humanity.





3.
The imbalanced weight
of man’s achievements
and herded hostilities





wobbles the planet’s
tipsy equilibrium
between war and peace,





the struggle for power
over Nature
to right herself.











							

	
			

				
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Half-Inch


			

				Posted on February 5, 2025 by  | 2 comments
			


				

				











Far from the advertised Atmospheric River forecast, we are grateful for the much needed moisture overnight.  Just a sprinkle when Robbin took this photograph yesterday evening as sunshine leaked through the approaching clouds.

							

	
			

				
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LIKE A WINDOW


			

				Posted on January 25, 2025 by  | 3 comments
			


				

				






Mt. Tamalpais – L.E. Rea (1868-1927)







There are no windows on the south wall
to let the sun’s heat into a hot summer room, 
but a 3’ x 5’  L. E. Rea painting framed 
of Mt. Tam I thought was Montana 
when I was a boy in my grandfather’s house 
hanging above the mantle over the blazing, 
hairy arms of grapevines pruned, hauled 
and piled for the winter by the barn 
with the remains of corrals for draft 
horses and mules back in the day—that
my sister and I damned-near burned down
playing with matches. The fire trucks came
at dusk from town, sirens screaming closer
before I ever saw the flames.

Sunlight through mottled clouds
on the hillside near begs my eyes to stay. 
Its bare, steep peak drawing me 
from my desk to the south wall
like a window to a better place.














							

	
			

				
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WORDPRESS


			

				Posted on January 9, 2025 by  | Leave a comment
			


				

				











My apologies to those who’ve been frustrated trying to comment on this site.  I’ve tried to address the problem with what’s available to me on this end from WordPress.  Some comments never make it, while others show up in batches, days and even weeks after they are made.  Your comments are very important to me and others who follow this site.





I’ve given up trying to address this online, it’s time for a phone call or some changes.






							

	
			

				
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THE VOCAL MINORITY


			

				Posted on January 7, 2025 by  | 2 comments
			


				

				
















Night showers, cold damp dawn,
intense coyote octaves shrill—an eerie 
screaming claims the canyon

as I search for forgotten details 
for the morning’s branding, 
worried for baby calves

before the crew arrives
for coffee and last minute
plans.  What rarity has triggered

this assault on silence, what wild 
imperative, what joy requires
such passionate agreement?

What have I missed
not learning the language
after fifty-five years?



I really dislike word press. I have wasted too much time today simply trying to pass along a comment on your blog entry today about coyotes. Before I moved to la la land north, at the ranch I used to enjoy this vocal minority calling to each other from valley floor (even if at times it sounded as if it was coming from just outside our bedroom window) to the upper hills and then beyond into the canyons and back again. Lonely.  Eerie.  Beautiful.
Keep on writing, my friend. You weave beautiful poetry beyond telling city folks about life (mostly work) on the ranch up Dry Creek Road. 

s





							

	
			

				
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BRANDING 2025


			

				Posted on January 6, 2025 by  | 3 comments
			


				

				










Robbin’s iPhoto.  Pictured with me: Shawn Fox  & Chuck Fry


I was weaned on a copy of the Teco calf table and my job at six or seven was to push the calves up a narrow chute through the sliding gate to the table.  My dad was on one side and Clarence Holdbrooks on the other.  Clarence would catch the head and squeeze the body of the calf, and then tip the table into a horizontal position.  My dad would put a rope around the back feet of the calf and stretch them tight to make it immobile so the bull calves could be castrated and all the calves branded, vaccinated and ear marked.  Once done, the table would be tipped to a vertical position and the calf released.  The three of us, two men and a boy, would brand 50 head in about 2 hours.


The calves were small, but I learned a lot from the back side of those calves.  Of course my denim jeans would be covered with shit. Naturally the calves would often kick me, but  I learned that the closer I got to the calf the less the kick would hurt as opposed to standing back and getting the full force of the kick.


Branding on the calf table wasn’t much fun compared to roping the calves a horseback, so by the time I got my own cows, we headed, heeled and stretched them out for the process.  And so it went for fifty years here, a crew of the neighbors branding one another’s calves—trading labor.


I remember branding calves for Forrest Homer in a 20’ x 20’ board pen where you needed to know how to throw a trap with your heel rope.  But since then the corrals have gotten larger and the action quicker to where today’s brandings have become more like team ropings that are harder on the calves, so much so that Robbin and I have gone back to using the calf table.


 









Robbin’s iPhoto.  Terri Blanke, Allie Fox, Tammi Rivas






							

	
			

				
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