Tag Archives: photography

We train our young replacement heifers to be gentle and to follow the Kubota or feed truck when we feed so when they go up the hill in the next year or two, we can gather them and their calves easily. Having been through the same process, their mothers and grandmothers have imprinted this same calmness on their calves.

Due to the atmospheric rivers, we were unable to see our cattle for 3 months, but the calves gentled down quickly in the weaning pen on alfalfa hay. Now weaned about 30 days, they’ve been turned out along the creek on native feed and a little extra green due to the spring rains. We’ve been supplementing them once-a -week. While I was photographing the floods’ ensuing boulder fields and patches of cockleburs, they heard the Kubota and followed me, on the march, towards the feed ground, hoping it was the right day.

4 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged attitude, Dry Creek, photography, rain, Replacement Heifers, weaning, weather

ACORNS

Posted on July 12, 2023 by John | Leave a comment

One by one off trucks,

hooked or boomed into the barn

banked for the unknown.

Sweaty, sleeveless shirt, Dusty

Bohannon, until he died, unloaded

thousands of bob-tailed trucks

before the booms pitched bales inside,

before the squeezes stacked dumps up

for unknown winter times

like grounded vermin store

in tunneled chambers, or cackling birds

in fenceposts pecked with holes.

AFTER ATMOSPHERIC RIVERS

Posted on July 11, 2023 by John | 7 comments

The magic remains along the creek

spread wide with naked cobbles pressed

together, exposed by flooding sheets

that ripped its sandy banks before

leaving the channel changed—

a landscape rearranged for the moment!

A summer gurgle, herons and egrets come

to wade abandoned pools of pollywogs

shrinking into moss-covered gravel.

Green cockleburs rise-up from ribbons

of sand, high-water veins bleached white

until colored or carried away with the burrs.

The truth is endless here—it will keep

saying the same thing in different ways

well after we are gone.

7 Comments

Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal

Tagged Atmospheric Rivers, cobbles, cockleburs, photography, poetry, rain, truth, water, weather

BREAKFAST WITH HEIFERS

Posted on May 20, 2023 by John | 1 comment

Third day wean

when hungry heifers

eat out of my hands

at the feed bunk—

leafy alfalfa flakes

that fall apart, the rich

green of last year’s

high-dollar hay—

rather than distress

over mothers no longer

posted at the gate

that most have left

lamenting another loss

of nine-month intimacy

and their mother-daughter

companionship.

1 Comment

Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, Ranch Journal

Tagged 2023 heifers, bovine intimacies, innocence, photography, poetry, stress, weaning

Weaning Steers

Posted on May 13, 2023 by John | Leave a comment

I think we’ve finally caught up and close to being on time with our ranch work since the last Atmospheric River at the end of March. We got across the creek towards the end of April when flow was down to 90 cfs to see our cows while trying to get our fences up to hold them when we gathered and weaned. Since the ARs, Dry Creek is spider-webbed with streams of sand in new high-water channels requiring some leveling with the skid steer to replace fencing and to approach the creek. Meanwhile on this side of the road and creek, we’ve had a crew building fence to better accommodate the acreage changes since Robbin and I have scaled down our activities.

But on time, our first bunch of calves will be weaned and ready for Visalia Livestock Market’s “Off the Grass Sale” on Wednesday, May 17th. They are 7-weight Vintage-sired steers. The market has been strong, though slightly weaker lately. With our cow numbers down due to acreage changes and past years of drought, we will need whatever extra money the market will offer us.

After seven days a week for nearly two months, it’s a relief to feel caught up.

Atmospheric River Repairs

Posted on May 9, 2023 by John | 1 comment

The grass has turned while we’ve been busy repairing our fences in order to sort and ship our calves to town. Because the brush catchers upstream failed to hold all the debris, our pipe fence across the high water channels when the creek was flowing 8,000 cfs (cubic feet/second) collected what leaked by until it was overwhelmed.

It’s been a slow process, but neighbors and friends brought their hydraulic muscle to stand it upright Sunday morning in a couple of hours. We had to cut it in sections and finished welding them together yesterday.

Thanks to all concerned.

1 Comment

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal, Video

Tagged Atmospheric Rivers, Dry Creek, hydraulic muscle, neighbors, photography, pipe fence, rain, weather

Crossing the Creek

Posted on April 23, 2023 by John | 6 comments

We haven’t been able to cross Dry Creek for three months due to the series of Atmospheric Rivers that began last December. Subsequently, Robbin and I haven’t seen the cattle for three months.

Fortunately, we had a dozer nearby to spread the cobble and sand bar evenly across the channel.

Salt hungry, they’ve been doing fine without us. We were quite pleased with both cows and calves.