Tag Archives: Calves

SYMMETRY

Posted on February 14, 2015 by John | 3 comments

May 18, 2014

A crop of fat calves
just weaned from relieved mothers
like peas in a pod.

WPC(1) — “Symmetry”

3 Comments

Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015

Tagged Calves, cows, Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, weekly-photo-challenge

Ode to the Crew 2: Six Pix

Posted on February 14, 2015 by John | 3 comments

Branding calves is an acquired art, not to be confused with the timed rodeo event of team roping. The idea is to get the calf to the fire while making it as easy on the calf, horses and ground crew (in that order) as possible. Douglas Thomason above times the rhythm of his loop for a long distance shot, catching the calf before it knows it’s caught, half the job done with no stress and little fuss.

Though the camaraderie is an essential part of trading labor, the branding pen is not a place for recreation. Robbin and I appreciate the care our neighbors take with our calves, as this 450 pound bull calf above would bring about $1,100 in town today. We hope that by June that he’ll be a 650 steer and bring in the vicinity of $2.50/lb. An injured calf, or ones overstressed and susceptible to sickness can become expensive.

Followers of branding pictures on this blog will recognize many familiar faces. On the ground, everyone has a job to do, an orderly process of vaccinations, castration, branding, dehorning, earmarking, tagging and recording–in the branding pen, it can become a dynamic dance.

Yet in the midst of it all, there are moments that might be forgotten if not captured in a photograph, whether a daughter recently returned home having a moment with her father,

or a Brent Huntington wiping sweat and smoke from his eyes.

Our thanks to all, especially the several anonymous photographers.

3 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged branding, Brent Huntington, Calves, Douglas Thomason, Greasy Creek, neighbors, photographs

Ode to the Crew 1: Six Pix

Posted on February 13, 2015 by John | 9 comments

We set the ‘point and shoot’ on the branding table, the following were shot by several different people.

There is no easy tribute to good neighbors necessary in the branding pen, whether horseback or on the ground. Trading labor is part of our culture, and the work’s not done until everyone’s calves are branded and vaccinated. Towards the tail end of the branding season, our last bunch of calves were big, which makes Robbin and I happy of course, but it also means harder and more dangerous work for everyone.

Our gather to brand in Greasy began Sunday, over a week ago, interrupted by welcome rain that kept us from finishing the process until last Tuesday — some cows and calves had spent eleven days in out Gathering Field waiting for yesterday. Additionally, wood had to be cut for the branding and cook fires, and the weeds in the corral, nearly two-foot tall, had to be addressed with a weed-eater before we were ready.

It was a long day, shirtsleeves weather, warm in the mid-70s.

Always some exciting moments, even though everyone tries to be respectful and gentle with the calves, some were a handful, pushing 500 pounds.

Calm and steady, we have acquired an efficient routine of ropers and ground crew. Divided into two groups of ropers so arms and horses have time to rest between bunches, there’s always time to visit.

9 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged branding, Calves, cows, Greasy Creek, neighbors, photographs, weather

OLD NEIGHBORS

Posted on February 12, 2015 by John | 10 comments

                        By the excellence of his work the workman is a neighbor.
                        By selling only what he would not despise to own
                        the salesman is a neighbor. By selling what is good
                        his character survives the market.
                              – Wendell Berry (“Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer”)

We wish success for all our neighbors, fat
calves and money enough to buy good bulls
looking for work on our side of the fence,
and ours on theirs, despite best intentions.

Today, old neighbors come to help brand calves
with respect—rope, stretch and vaccinate
rambunctious children to a slow waltz—
to share the bounty of our heritage

despite the drought, despite the cows
we had to sell to save the others
and ourselves. Character upon this ground,
we have survived weather and the market.

10 Comments

Posted in Poems 2015

Tagged "Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer", Calves, cows, Drought, Dry Creek, Mad Farmer, neighbor, neighbors, poetry, rain, weather, Wendell Berry

WAITING TO BLOOM

Posted on February 7, 2015 by John | 6 comments

In the darkness, I listen to a light strum
upon the roof, visualize the size
of raindrops, calculate the hours

necessary to quench the earth’s thirst
for a week or two before going back
to dream of hillsides too wet to climb,

cattle fat come May – nothing I can do,
but hope and pray for some release.
Sucked dry, we still hold on to a chance

for a verdant spring, grass bellyhigh
and sprinkled with wild colors
from all the old seeds waiting to bloom.

6 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015

Tagged Calves, cows, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, weather, wildflowers

HIS HERONS

Posted on January 21, 2015 by John | 2 comments

Easter 2014

After rain in spring, I see my father
standing among a half-dozen others
atop fresh mounds of dirt, hear him

praise the Great Blue Heron as the best
‘gopher-getter around’. As the creek
warms, he glides up canyon early,

spends his days wading shallows,
coasting home in the gloaming.
Punctual, you could set your watch

by his circles to work each day,
depending on season and crop.
When it all mattered too much,

he’d slip up the road to check
the feed and fences, the condition
of my cows grazing with his herons.

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015

Tagged birds, Calves, cows, Dry Creek, father, Great Blue Heron, photographs, poetry, water, weather, wildlife

Wagyu X Branding 2015

Posted on January 14, 2015 by John | 8 comments

Maggie Loverin checks her pork loins adorned with grapefruit and oranges after we branded our Wagyu X calves yesterday, while the sun tried to break through the bad-air haze and remnants of Valley fog.

Noticeably quicker and more unpredictable to rope than our Angus calves, the Wagyu are a challenge to head and heel, real work for everyone. But we had a great day and ate well!

Well into our branding season now, we’re beginning to wear down a little, especially with the extra weight of wondering and worrying when it’s going to rain, repercussions of the drought still raw. One topic of conversation in the branding pen included the different kinds of bloat, fairly rare to most of us, but taking casualties in Antelope Valley, half-mile west of here.

All that methane gas that can’t escape inflates the cow and kills her usually leaving an orphan calf—a slurry of foamy gas in the cow’s rumen that can’t be released with an external needle or tube down her throat was news to us, that has come from our lush and washy feed in certain places on the flat ground, mostly filaree. We’ve had several of our cows blow up and subside on their own with a regular supplement of dry hay. There are also commercial free-choice products to prevent bloat that take time to incorporate into the cow’s system, but without assurance that everyone gets some.

How long this situation will last is unknown, but we know a rain would change things. With no likelihood for the rest of the month from any weather-predicting source, we get the work done in love with what we do.

8 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Bovine bloat, branding, Calves, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, rain, Wagyu X, weather

FINDING ORDINARY

Posted on January 11, 2015 by John | 4 comments

Old men in the branding pen
hope for grace

to find the feel of singing loop
slide between their fingers—

of hoof dance timed and shaped
to catch two feet, slack to dally horn

come tight, as if it were nothing
out of the ordinary.

4 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal

Tagged age, branding, Calves, feel, feeling, Greasy Creek, Old men, photographs, poetry

SABBATH HOME

Posted on January 4, 2015 by John | 8 comments

1.
After the flood of holiday cheer
and four black and frosty mornings
into the New Year, I have lost track
of the names of days

                        celebrating work:
                        friends gathered,
                        calves branded,
                        meat fired

                        and bottles emptied—
                        the hugs and handshakes
                        of neighbors, persistent
                        habits etched deeper

                        in the hard ground
                        worn around our eyes—
                        deeper yet into souls,
                        our pupils as pinholes

                        to grand landscapes
                        either side, missed
                        by the migratory headed
                        somewhere up the road.

2.
We live within a dot on the map,
a speck of dust on a spinning globe
in space and time without end,

holding firm to our moment,
looking back and ahead at once:
no finish line in sight.

3.
We pace our plodding, take all week
to get the work done, to savor details
of small accomplishment in a hazy

scheme of keeping track of seasons
shaped by rain, or lack of it—
our spiritual sustenance comes

with the crescendo of storms
we pray for, almost everyday, keeping
busy while we wait for an answer.

4.
In the winter, we invest in the future
measured by firewood stacked outside
the door, like last year’s crop of acorns
stored by natives, wild and domestic,

we are prepared in this place
to loose track of days scattered
like native cattle into strays
chasing the good grass back home.