Though summer has been fairly tame here so far, it’s begun to warm up with 108 high on Saturday with cloudy skies and some errant raindrops. The Super El Nino forecasts have been pretty much the same for the past 30 days with few new details, just an elevated level of fear it seems. Like politics, we are hostage to the weather, preparing where we can.
Dicentra chrysantha, Woolley Canyon April 12, 2025
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal, Wildlfowers
Tagged Golden Eardrops, photographs
Far from the advertised Atmospheric River forecast, we are grateful for the much needed moisture overnight. Just a sprinkle when Robbin took this photograph yesterday evening as sunshine leaked through the approaching clouds.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric River, photographs, rain, water, weather
Robbin’s iPhoto. Pictured with me: Shawn Fox & Chuck Fry
I was weaned on a copy of the Teco calf table and my job at six or seven was to push the calves up a narrow chute through the sliding gate to the table. My dad was on one side and Clarence Holdbrooks on the other. Clarence would catch the head and squeeze the body of the calf, and then tip the table into a horizontal position. My dad would put a rope around the back feet of the calf and stretch them tight to make it immobile so the bull calves could be castrated and all the calves branded, vaccinated and ear marked. Once done, the table would be tipped to a vertical position and the calf released. The three of us, two men and a boy, would brand 50 head in about 2 hours.
The calves were small, but I learned a lot from the back side of those calves. Of course my denim jeans would be covered with shit. Naturally the calves would often kick me, but I learned that the closer I got to the calf the less the kick would hurt as opposed to standing back and getting the full force of the kick.
Branding on the calf table wasn’t much fun compared to roping the calves a horseback, so by the time I got my own cows, we headed, heeled and stretched them out for the process. And so it went for fifty years here, a crew of the neighbors branding one another’s calves—trading labor.
I remember branding calves for Forrest Homer in a 20’ x 20’ board pen where you needed to know how to throw a trap with your heel rope. But since then the corrals have gotten larger and the action quicker to where today’s brandings have become more like team ropings that are harder on the calves, so much so that Robbin and I have gone back to using the calf table.
Robbin’s iPhoto. Terri Blanke, Allie Fox, Tammi Rivas
September 16, 2024 – #8043 Rocky – Chuck Fry Photo
September 17, 2024 – #8088 – Paregien – JCD Photo
for Age & Source Verification
A little more anticipation, it seems, as we’re calving 2 weeks later hoping to take advantage of cooler weather.
We could blame last spring’s atmospheric rivers, double our average rainfall for the season that kept us from branding our calves on the Paregien Ranch. Our heifer calves were exposed to our slick bull calves until we weaned in May, possibly bred that would miss our calving target date of October. A February calf instead would jeopardize the heifer and eliminate her from our replacement bunch.
When we vaccinated the heifers for clostridial, respiratory and Brucellosis diseases in June, we also injected them with Lutalyse to abort any short-term fetuses. Lutalyse is commonly used to synchronize heat cycles, especially when groups of cattle are to be artificially inseminated.
We’ve had an abundance of strong feed this summer, helping to keep our heifers in shape and cycling when we turn our low-birth weight bulls out in the middle of December. And as expected, they have been cycling, bulling, practicing all at once—a bovine orgy, a virtual humpfest.
Unfortunately, one heifer was crippled in the raucous activity, unable to put any weight on her right hind leg. We hauled water and hay to her for three days before walking her into the pen by the house. Shortly thereafter, she (Thelma) attracted a friend (Louise) who spent days and nights for week with her on the other side of the fence while the rest of the heifers were off grazing.
After two weeks, Thelma is much better now, and taking full strides. Louise was back again last evening to check on her friend. The bond is obvious. They may be twins, as we had several sets, but more than likely they were just raised together. Whether or not Thelma recovers well enough to make the replacement bunch remains to be seen. But either way, blame it on climate change and too much rain.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged breeding, bulling, cripple, heat cycles, humpfest, photographs, rain, Replacement Heifers, weather
Ever so gentle, these waves of wild oats—
easy undulations into the wide swath
of bright-yellow White Mustard
in the disturbed ground
where we fed bulls
drought after drought.
If ever I could reinvent myself
as easily with storm after storm,
shake the slow walk and run
with breath aplenty, mind sharp.
Hazy days of snapshots flashing
uninvited or young among old men
now gone in the photograph
of the branding crew Rochelle took
when Craig was still alive
hanging on the bathroom wall
with south slopes of pure gold,
wet spring after the Drought of 1977.
Ever so gentle, these waves of memory,
stories only searching names,
ever so gentle, they come to me.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged age, branding crew, Drought, Drought of '77, flashbacks, Holland Corrals, memories, photographs, photography, poetry, rain
Another 1.58″ in the last 24 hrs., 2-day total 3.79″, forecast of 4+” through Wednesday, 3/15.
2. Pipe fence we recently built to the creek acted like a brush catcher and is lying flat.
3 & 4. Culvert on Ridenhour Creek couldn’t handle the flow, wiped out fence and gate braces.
Lots of hillside sloughing on Dry Creek Rd, plugged culverts everywhere. Road closed. Greater damages to surrounding roads and small towns, Woodlake, Exeter, Elderwood.
We’re fine.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric Rivers, Dry Creek, flood water, photographs, rain, weather
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