We could be cattle, days
with no names like ticks on a clock—
each dark silence, welcome escape
from two years of want,
or stampeded substitute gods
overrun with adulation,
bringing feed and water to
damned-near everything.
Only now, with well-timed rain
and drizzles freeing cotyledons
from the clay, watching the young
bulls get acquainted with cows,
do we forget the drought
to see our future grass
and heifer calves—sure
that tomorrow is Tuesday.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged cows, Drought, Dry Creek, gods, photographs, poetry, water, weather, wildlife
Good hooks and an eye
to hunt fish underwater
throughout the dry years.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged birds, Drought, Dry Creek, haiku, Osprey, Pandion haliaetus, photographs, poetry, water, weather, wildlife
Time for a shower,
a quarter, a tenth.
I have the next rain
at my fingertips—
the hunt and peck,
scroll of percentiles
dialed-in
hour by hour
of the good stuff I want—
that naked clay needs
to stay alive.
Nothing’s changed.
We all hang on a forecast—
cuss the messenger
who gets paid
when he’s wrong
or claims he’s right.
It is our nature
where a man’s word
is everything.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, rain, weather, weathermen
Dear Dawn, I await you in a cavern
of wet blackness, upstate exhaust hangs
between me and the suns and stars
of my reward, (or as far as I have seen
of infinity), as the dew from the last rain
clings to each unhealthy particulate,
camouflaged to look and feel like fog.
I have missed your smile, bright eyes,
and warm touch across the landscape
of my face, but we inhale this wet veil
holding clay slopes damp, moistening
each cotyledon struggling to break free
from the earth’s grip to make grass,
turn hills green with the circumambulation
of black dots—cows and calves grazing.
Another ugly day without you, feeding
hay in gray, but it ain’t all bad—
I’ll see you when I can. xxooxxoo, J.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged bad air, Calves, cows, dawn, Drought, Dry Creek, feeding, fog, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather
It’s a waiting game now for our bare hills to take on a shade of green as the first cotyledons of our grass seed break the crust left after Friday and Saturday’s remarkable rain. It’s not typical to begin our rainy season with 1.76” on Dry Creek, or 2.62” in Greasy Creek. Usually, we hope to get a half-inch to start the grass, but more often than not fail after our first storm event.
Everybody’s hungry and there’s really not much to eat, actually less immediately after a rain, other than what we are feeding our cows. With some calves two months old and growing, demanding more from their mothers, it’s starting to show on the cows, less fleshy now than a month ago. We’ve been increasing the amount we’re feeding right along trying to keep everyone in shape, hoping that when the grass comes that the calves will keep right on growing, and that our cows will be in good enough shape to cycle and breed back when we put the bulls out next month.
All very subjective. Working around slick roads elsewhere, we fed the girls above a day early yesterday as we drug our road up into Greasy Creek to fill in some of the gullies and ruts accumulated after the past two years of not enough moisture to effectively smooth them out. And good that we brought a little extra hay, as the calves were as glad to see us as the cows.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, Drought, feeding, Greasy Creek, photographs, rain, weather
Now soft in places, red clay slick
feeding cows in the brown
bare flats beneath naked hills
loose piles of last year’s alfalfa,
each dry flake spaced to fall
into small green haystacks
where cows camp in an undulating
line within a cloudy chill
until this promise of grass
changes the color of everything
we have known for too long.
Looking down, plodding still,
eyes occupied with searching for
the first cotyledons to break free
from the crust, glad hands open
to the elements believing in more
good rains. Vote for those who know
growth without water won’t work.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged cows, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, politics, rain, water, weather
Dark brown and naked after rain,
these hills have held together
despite their deep dust and our fears
after years of drought. Impossibly,
we even see a tinge of green
before the clouds clear the ridges.
Come alive and breathing, ready
to raise lush leaf and grass, they will
never be the same again in our eyes!
Nor we, forever worn by lack of moisture
on this earth and all across our minds—
growing closer and more grateful.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather
Day and night comes much the same
as an evening of time—not ticked,
but slurred one word into the next
like a soloist might his octaves
into prolonged song. Soft and low
at first, a rumbling from a dusty
cave of lungs, a subtle clearing
of the passageways for all things
since the common miracle of rain.
Well-short of whole, she learns
to breathe again, her heartbeat sure
awakens color deep within her flesh
for the moment, and then the next
until she’s fit for more natural activities,
more normal rules for mortals to abide
in her simple service and generosity.
It’s an old tune we have forgotten,
a harkening of high notes for sopranos
and baritones to blaze before us
as she awakens. Dark or light, her each
new breath is ours come back to life.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather, wildlife
We’ve been getting ready for a week—
cleaned the gutters and the woodstove,
stacked and corded oak and Manzanita,
brazed a soup bone with plenty meat
and vegetables, just in case the neighbors
drop by to watch it rain—some more.
Inch and a half overnight, we take
and release a deep, moist breath.
For all ingredients, just add water.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, Vegetable Soup, water
Blazing summer between calves,
grazing our world
with clean water to drink.
Posted in Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged cows, Drought, haiku, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, water, weather
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