Tag Archives: Dry Creek

REVISITING RIP VAN WINKLE

Posted on February 2, 2024 by | 2 comments

 

Flash after flash above

a steely barrage of pellets—

an opaque torrent of gray rain

 

cut by the crack of thunder

as if the gods were falling timber

or sawing logs—

 

or just inebriated

in the mountains

playing nine pins.

 

 

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CRUSADES

Posted on January 7, 2024 by | 6 comments

 

Caravans of SUVs, militarily spaced in case one gets lost,

race up our pocked-marked and decomposing mountain road

on Fridays to Hartland and Hume Lake Christian camps

to thin, clean air and worship exposed to cedars and pines

only to return Sunday afternoons as if God were driving

 

irresponsibly—an ascension of modern day crusaders

sprinting with a gang of jeeps, retrofitted for climbing rocks

and spinning hookers in the melting snow, the whir

and hum of mud-grips from miles below. Always

casualties, strapped to the backs of tow trucks home.

 

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Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal

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RIDGELINE

Posted on January 3, 2024 by | Leave a comment

 

A bustling world of change

with all its shenanigans beyond

the renewed green after rain,

 

beyond the ridgeline that has stayed

the same for a thousand lifetimes,

ever since Tro’khud, the Eagle

 

and Wee-hay’-sit, the Mountain Lion

shaped a body from clay

and baked it in the house of tules

 

they had set afire. Then put a piece

of him in a basket and set it beside

Sho-no’-yoo spring to become his mate.

 

They made mistakes like paws for hands

they had to change—but for a moment

they were safe this side of the ridge.

 

 

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

Posted on January 1, 2024 by | 12 comments

 

I’s been a great week between Christmas and New Years with Robbin’s brother Joe here to help out cutting wood, splitting oak, hanging gates, cleaning-up the Horehound, Turkey Mullein and tumbleweeds along the driveway, not to mention vehicle maintenance while getting 0.34″ slow rain that has revitalized our green.  We’ve taken time-out around the BBQ fire pit with Bloody Mary’s and a Mexican Coffee to celebrate our accomplishments.

 

Though I would have liked the rain to come a month earlier, the weather’s been perfect, rain spaced well with warm temperatures as the canyon has turned from blond dry feed to green.  The cows and calves have moved to the softened ground uphill to get a bite of both as we watch the virgin Red Angus bulls, close-by, fumbled their way to breeding postures.  As Robbin quips, “It’s a wonder we get any calves at all.” 

This is what we work for, an uncertain future, and wish you all a joyful 2024 !!

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SLEEPING BEES

Posted on December 23, 2023 by | 3 comments

 

A bower for sleeping bees,

the ground begs softly

beneath the burning trees

to foster cotyledons

and change the canyon green.

 

No cars on the road,

silence weighs heavily,

not a bird or bull’s bawl

to claim the open space

that’s come alive.

 

The gray sky witness

floats in a cloud-fog

damp and undemanding

as the long pause of winter

moves into a new beginning.

 

 

 

 

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WINTER SOLSTICE 2023

Posted on December 22, 2023 by | Leave a comment

 

A few blue clouds float

upon a light gray sky

above Barnaphy after

 

the surprise last gasp

of a cut-off low

cruising south to flood

 

California’s coast—

a warm forty hundredths here

brings a tinge of green.

 

Sycamores like torches afire,

not quite ready to undress

their long white limbs

 

intertwined, plump Rockettes,

our native chorus line

burns along the creek.

 

The cattle stay high,

all but a hopeful clutch

spurn the feed grounds.

 

 

 

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WEST BEQUETTE

Posted on October 28, 2023 by | 3 comments

 

It’s been years since

we circled the section

of steep pasture between

 

the creek and Antelope Valley,

reading tracks and trading

memories of battling bucks—

 

the merge of gathers

spinning in a blur

of wild oats.

 

It’s how the ground reminds us

who we were and who we are

once again.

 

 

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ZINNIA AND MONARCH

Posted on October 26, 2023 by | Leave a comment

 

We’ve enjoyed the striking colors of the dahlias and zinnias in the garden during a relatively mild summer this year, with bouquets of both inside and out of the house.  They have drawn a host of Monarch Butterflies after a bountiful year for the Showy Milkweed in our upper country. What great weather to wait for a rain!

 

 

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ANOTHER WEATHER FORECAST

Posted on October 6, 2023 by | Leave a comment

 

With all the hoopla surrounding Climate Change and the approaching El Niño, suddenly the world is focused on the weather and a myriad of conflicting scientific observations and conclusions, heretofore ignored by most in the past.  But for those of us involved in grazing livestock and dependent on the bounties of Mother Nature, October is the beginning of our rainy season as we try to look ahead into our futures.

 

Historically, “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” has offered as accurate a forecast as any:

 

PACIFIC SOUTHWEST

November 2023

             4° below average

             Precipitation 5” (1” below average)

December 2023

            4° below average

            Precipitation 3” (4” below average)

January 2024

            3° below average

            Precipitation 5” (1” below average)

February 2024

            2° above average

            Precipitation 6.5” (2” above average)

March 2024

            3° above average

            Precipitation 1.5” (2.5” below average)

April 2024

            2° above average

            Precipitation 5” (1.5” above average)

May 2024

            2° above average

            Precipitation 0.5” (1.5” below average)

June 2024

            1° below average

            Precipitation 0.05” (1” below average)

For what it’s worth, the rain total comes to 27”, well above our 15” average.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

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OCTOBER 2023

Posted on October 5, 2023 by | 1 comment

 

No point waiting for a rain to start the green

until October, and even then it’s blasphemy

to pray or say the word out loud to anyone—

especially with El Niño mapped and gathering

off shore, lapping Jeffer’s granite with warm waves

 

of poetry—just load and feed the hay like always.

No point worrying about the news a thousand miles away

or all the hobgoblins waiting in ambush down the road

littered with deceptions and diversions, lust and greed

to greet you—just load and feed the hay like always.

 

 

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