Tag Archives: photography

First Calves 2026

Tag 5029

Tag 5026

Tag 5007

Surprised to see three ‘first calves’ this morning from our first calf heifers, photographed to substantiate our Age and Source Verification Program required for our exported beef. We have begun our new year!

The recent notion to import more beef to lower the price of hamburger to consumers in this country also lowers the price to producers who are facing higher prices for fuel and fertilizer, many of whom are in a drought.

INSIDER:

  • Trump announced a plan to lower beef prices for Americans ahead of the midterm elections.
  • His administration will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of beef to be imported into the US.
  • The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said the decision “undermines American producers.”

America’s largest trade association of cattle producers says President Donald Trump’s plan to lower beef prices is political theater

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents more than 175,000 cattle producers and feeders, said on Friday that the strategy would do more harm than good for the industry. Earlier that day, Trump said the US would allow up to 300,000 metric tons of beef to be imported with no out-of-quota tariff over the next 90 days.

“Today’s announcement is not about helping producers,” the association said on X. “It’s not about putting their finger on the scale for one cattle industry group or another. It is 100% about the 74 days between now and the midterm elections.”

In the same X thread, the association said that encouraging more beef imports undermines American cattle producers at a time when they’re making decisions about rebuilding their herd numbers for next year. The association also said the administration’s “repeated whiplash on trade policy and beef imports” directly affects rural cattle producers.

“US farmers and ranchers need stability,” the group said. “Unlike spur-of-the-moment trading decisions made based on White House social media posts, the decisions and investments ranchers make in their herds are made YEARS in advance, not days or weeks.”

WATER TROUGH

A water trough
leveled for a float
with a puddle
at the bottom

resembles our aquifer
thousands of feet below
the tax write-offs
of corporate farming,

as the ground collapses
to take the water’s place
deposited before man
walked this earth,

before we were so many
thirsty inhabitants
pumping for more
until the trough is empty.

Image

STRAWBERRY MOON

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROBBIN

Quiet and still, nothing on the narrow road
before dawn, the birds are sleeping in
on your birthday, hills genuflecting

where heifers graze the dry creek bed,
a moment frozen from our beginning
before the barns, fences and a herd of cows

to be proud of. How we howled in the dark
through the open window, challenged the coyotes,
let the empty canyon know we were here to stay.

All these years on your birthday, too busy
to count them, too busy to care,
too happy to have it any other way.

GAMBLING

Rain nine days away, they say—those prognosticators.
95 degrees third week in March after a month of dry
as the grass on south and west sloping faces
goes to seed next year’s grazing—or so we hope.

Lifetime wagers on the weather,
and gambles on the market for hay and cattle,
we pray that politicians don’t impede our subsistence
to garner more attention—control and votes like always.

We are the pawns in this equation, farmers, shepherds
of this world, tracing dawns along the ridgelines
chasing seasons for generations—filling empty plates
with much more than what most people see.

SPRINGING

The sycamores are pushing leaves
against green hillsides along the creek—
thin clouds smeared upon blue seas
above fresh snow upstream, and we

old timers wait for the wildflowers
we remember, their names and faces
begging for a moment in the sun
far from the news in Washington.

Thank God it finally rained after months
of fog, the only moisture to keep the grass
alive, and only now does it start to grow
after the frost and freezing mornings

that make strong feed. You can see it piled
behind the heifers, instead of puddles,
licking themselves as if their coats
were combed with gobs of Brylcreem.

It’s the little things that tell the story
I’m looking for—Baby Blue Eyes,
Mariposa Lillies and Pretty Faces
to greet me spring mornings.

STAR STRUCK

Sunday morning’s horoscope suggests
why not write some poetry
planets aligned for me to be
feeling especially inspired or artistic
and I try, despite the broken tooth
too short to extract with vice grips,
crumbling, throbbing with coffee.

Devastation at the distant feral cat’s
food down at the shop, a raccoon,
I suspect, stuck in the small door
cut in its thirty-gallon cover.
I envision the coon panicked, flipping over—
kibble scattered like gravel,
empty dishes upside down, secret
humor as I reclaim the mess.

And the weeds we sprayed yesterday
from the welcome rains that washed-out
all the fences across the creek
between neighbors, their cattle
headed south, tentatively exploring
our empty pasture across from the house.

Dark shadows shrink upon the green,
a picturesque pre-spring day
in-the-making. I sip cold coffee and wait.

TWO POEMS

IGNITION

The hillside Blue Oaks beneath the fog
round as mushrooms upon December green,
darkened mounds that have survived

the seasons for centuries speaking
what I can’t translate, yet admire above
the sycamores that hem the creek

as they catch fire—flaming colors
on the thirteenth successive day of fog
warm heart and mind despite the gray.

****

MURMURATION

The starlings swarm like bees,
murmuration, hundreds synchronized
in flight by unspoken cues to flare

and light en masse to peck and graze
the green, before that cerebral notion rises
into the sky with a synchronized dance.

Virgin Bulls and Heifers

The day has come to plant the seed,
these youngsters knowing nothing
of one another, of propagation,

or the nine months before
she becomes a mother
nosing and nursing her first calf—

deep-rooted instinct drives them.
A dead-beat dad, he moves on
to practice what he’s learned,

to keep track of all the girls
he sorts by name and nature,
always ready to go to work

or play like people we know
from the Internet news,
or some a bit closer to home.

AFTER RAIN

Granite outcrops clean,
lichen islands
ignite in flames,

November’s sunset
after a good long rain—
gray back to green,

both slopes and flats—
creek stalled
a mile upcanyon,

black dots
of cows and calves
grazing ridgetops.

Glistening tree bough
drops diamonds glistening,
raining rain.

There is more to heaven,
I suppose, a giving-up
of tarnished flesh

and character,
collected wisdom
won the hard way

for eternity—
this canyon green
I’d rather stay.