All the thirsty hearts
have sucked the dog dish down
beyond the reach of the panting Titmouse,
nervous little bastard bobbing
empty-beaked at his favorite waterhole
below the nozzle, hose and bib
during this two-week heat wave
of highs in the teens, like every summer here
in the San Joaquin.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged heat, photography, poetry, water, weather
I don’t recall Dry Creek ever flowing into August, as springs continue to feed this morning’s 9 cfs (cubic feet/second). March’s atmospheric river estimated 8,000 cfs, that scoured the channel and undermined the gauging station, left few places to cross the resultant boulder fields and cutbanks. Only now, as our cattle work winds down, do we have time to address some of the impacts of last spring’s rains.
Both for vehicles and cattle, I had to move our crossing downstream. Moving the big rocks was rough work for the skid steer, but I had all the materials I needed in the high water drifts of sand and gravel to smooth the crossing this morning—less than a three hour job. On the way to the corrals, hoof action of our replacement heifers will smooth it a little more.
We’re looking forward to September when the cows begin to calve, another month of a hundred degree weather that often extends into October, but the hot summer days are getting shorter.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric Rivers, CREEK CROSSING, heat, photography, rain, skid steer, summer, temperatures, weather
Midday siesta, I dream of water running
down the Tule, ouzels dipping, or
beer cooling in an eddy on the Kern—
of you and I, our faces streaked with rain
as if we were crying—love in our eyes.
All the mud-stuck trucks, leap-frogging,
winches whining as the clouds cracked,
bursting with more of the same.
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What else can we look forward to
this afternoon, inches from the Solstice,
what else can we do but dream? The air
is thin and burns the lungs. Leaves curl
in the garden while cows commiserate
in the shade of sycamores and oaks,
all their stories stored within rings,
chatter from the good old days.
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And what of native wisdom banked
in their massive trunks, or smooth gossip rocks
in the living Live Oak shade? All the secrets
we have lost to progress, all the important
unimportant things that have not saved time,
but accelerated it and our poor hearts
just trying to keep up. 110 degrees at noon,
what else can we do but dream?
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
Tagged dream, heat, progress, rivers, siesta, tree rings, water, wisdom
I study rock landmarks,
look for tracks
to see if they have moved.
The pipe gate swells
in the heat. Now only
swings but one way.
Resident ground squirrels
and immigrant ring-neck doves
share the dogs’ food.
On brutal days
over 110°—
there are no rules.
Like Dali’s clocks,
time is part of the landscape,
like it or not.
A man gives up early in the summer,
too warm for wine, too hot for evening
poetry to endure, before darkness closes
the oven doors to bake in the black.
The Kings River calls, trout singing
from the riffles, asking why, when
trails of natives and early settlers rise
into the mountains, spread like webs
into the pine cabins and camps
beside the mantra of running water
through the night. I go early to bed
to get there in my dreams.
Posted in Poems 2015
Tagged "Mountains and Rivers Without End", heat, mountains, rivers, summer, weather
Nobody keeps record temperatures in Lemon Cove, but yesterday’s 101° in Fresno broke the high set in 1927. It was 104° on Dry Creek as we hauled gooseneck loads of weaned calves, gathered the 101° day before, off the Paregein Ranch—three two-hour, four-wheel drive round trips off the mountain. In addition to the calves, we hauled 20% of the cows down to go to town as we prepare for summer with little feed. With less than 8” of rain, our rainy season is over until October, capping a second year of drought. With no snowpack or surface water runoff in California, hay prices are already escalating.
The first few days of 100° heat are hard on people and livestock physically, but we all get out a little earlier in the morning and finish what we didn’t get done in the evening. The most noticeable impact of the heat is to our temperaments, not near as pretty as this white geranium, happy as long as it gets water.
Posted in Photographs
Tagged Drought, flower-friday, garden, heat, Paregien Ranch, photographs, weather, white geranium
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