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!
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, Monarch Butterfly, photography, weather, zinnia
They’ve taken Saturday’s rain away
with future promises
like plastic magic debt
no one intends to pay.
We’ve been here before,
crooning to godesses
not to forget us
like the hopeless homeless.
We are this ground
rooted into the future
like the plodding lives of cattle,
trusting, trusting, trusting….
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, Cosmos, Drought, godesses, Monarch Butterfly, photography, poetry, rain, trusting, weather
Bumper crop of acorns,
warm monsoon rains.
The redbud bloomed
confused, drawing butterflies
for weeks—the season’s
last hatch of Monarchs
swarming crimson, orange
and black-trimmed fairies
to the front door.
All a sign of something
unusual, uniquely beautiful—
that superfluous imbalance
charged to an unknown
future—a fleeting gift
to remember the gods
before leaving us
four years dry and begging
for something normal.
Weekly Photo Challenge: “Weightless” Monarchs
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Acorns, Drought, gods, Monarch Butterfly, Redbud, signs, weekly-photo-challenge
Rare October Redbud bloom
summoned Monarchs,
began a two-year drought.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, haiku, Monarch Butterfly, photographs, poetry, Redbud, weather, weekly-photo-challenge, wildflowers, wildlife
Three phases of Asclepias speciosa, showy milkweed in June, August and September. A native perennial.
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