A man builds a house around a fire,
rocks and hearth upon the earth—
cuts wood to feed it, to stand close
to the flame when cold to the bone—
a luxury: he gets in touch
with the basics, with the tree.
Sometimes he says a little prayer
for the century felled or fallen,
or nods to hardwood cores intact
all his long life, stacking brush
for quail, cleaning up for grass
and cattle, like we’ve never been here.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Blue Oak, Dry Creek, firewood, photographs, poetry, wildlife
She knows her wood
and how long it will last—
loves Blue Oak coals
and the Live Oak with little ash.
Redwood splinters for an ember,
Manzanita for heat and flame,
she keeps a never-ending fire
three months warm each year.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Blue Oak, Calves, firewood, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, wood stove
Black, no stars—a mist before the storm
stacks-up against the Sierra Nevadas—
rises and rains just in time for grass
struggling with hard, thirsty clay.
We, too, have grown hard
with no deep moisture, roots dry
and brittle as the Live Oaks offering
boughs full of brown medallions.
The problem bears have moved
to town, followed the Kaweah
down into backyards and alleys,
packs of hungry coyotes behind them.
Slow and gentle would be best
for the red, south and west slopes,
any kind of puddles for the flats—
but whatever we get, we’ll like it ☺
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, Kaweah, photographs, poetry, rain, Sierra Nevadas, water, weather, wildlife, Wood Ducks
With no worries about stockwater nor under the gun to feed cattle everyday, Robbin and I went to the Paregien Ranch Saturday to check on the bulls we put out Monday and to cut a Kubota load of stove wood ahead of the rain forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday.
The grass is fading in places but the cows are holding up fairly well with growing demand from their calves. What feed we have lacks strength, but with our reduced numbers, the cows are staying full.
We were a curiosity to a couple of bull calves, approaching three months old, as we cleaned up a dead tree near the solar pump that we installed this summer. Robbin took pictures while stacking the brush.
Liking the smell and taste of the wood chips and sawdust, I was worried that they might try to lick the chain saw blade.
Just checking on our cows and calves and cutting wood are the fun jobs we haven’t had the time or luxury to enjoy,
and getting comfortable with relaxing seems to come in stages after virtually two years of feeding and trying to keep the nucleus of our cow herd intact. But we made real progress towards becoming human again over our fun-filled Thanksgiving weekend.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged bulls, Calves, cows, cutting wood, Drought, fun, Paregien Ranch, photographs, rain, stove wood, Thanksgiving, water, weather, Widgeon
Coffee at dawn, drumming
the Honey Locust—
old men talk, listening.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged birds, Dry Creek, garden, haiku, photographs, poetry, Red-Breasted Sapsucker, wildlife
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged cows, driving cattle, Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, weekly-photo-challenge
December 8, 2010
The green struggles in the clay.
Sycamores stand half-dressed
beside an empty bed exposing
white limbs as the sun sets.
The shadow of the ridge behind us
becomes a long, dark stage
for a chorus line of dancing girls,
arms entwined, kicking high
at the gate as we leave home
for a fire upstream—turkey
trimmed with camaraderie.
No traffic on the road to see
these celebrations along the creek
as the canyon waits for rain.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, Dry Creek Road, photographs, poetry, rain, sycamores, water, weather
Posted in Photographs
Tagged birds, Greasy Creek, photographs, Thanksgiving, wild turkeys, wildlife
the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.
– Wendell Berry (“The Silence”)
We name landmarks on maps in our minds
so we can go there. Some to detail feeling
with art reaching-out to all humanity
searching for that common hearthstone
beyond man’s hackneyed adjectives
and political objectives. We press names
into place with indelible ink hoping
to get lost in the map’s open space
to touch the unnamable and soar
with the song. Those elusive, musical
fragments, those glimpses in trees, but
all we have when words are done.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged photographs, poetry, Railroad, song, trees, water, Wendell Berry, words
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
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