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
1.
Gray dust clouds rising
behind cows down powdered trails
off these bare mountains.
2.
The diesel feed truck
awakes a bawling chorus
to claim the canyon.
3.
All imperative
and hungry, it twists our guts—
La Niña pending.
Posted in Haiku 2022, Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, Drought, haiku, La Nina, photography, poetry, water, weather
Change is made of choices
& choices are made of character.
– Amanda Gorman (“We Write”)
Nothing stays the same,
even the Earth wobbles on its axis.
We are not the same people—
we were raised with, and finally by.
Reason and truth have been inflated so
they have no value now, like fiat currency.
Yesterday, a man’s word defined him.
Today he speaks a foreign tongue.
But that’s all we have, a lifetime of words
to ease the speed and pain of change.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022
Tagged Amanda Gorman, change, character, photography, poetry, reason, truth, words
Up here, the deer unafraid.
We freeze together
to see who melts away first.
Posted in Haiku 2022, Photographs, Poems 2022
Tagged deer, haiku, photography, poetry, privacy
Along the road the CCCs
chiseled in the 30s, men and mules,
wheelbarrows and Fresno scrapers,
miles of sidehill on perfect grade
while the old oak watched
from the saddle
before the place got a name.
Coyotes trapped or shot
were tied with baling wire and hung
from a long, horizontal limb
through summer heat and rain
before becoming skeletons.
How many bones beneath it now
howl from its hollow limbs?
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022
Tagged 30s, bones, CCC, coyotes, photography, poetry, skeletons
Major wind event continues at noon today originating from a cut off low off the coast of Southern California, a pre-monsoonal surge of subtropical moisture bringing lightning and thunderstorms to the Southern Sierra and Central Valley into tomorrow. Little moisture. A.M. wind blew the top of a sycamore across our electrical service line to our pump at the corrals. We’ll have to haul water to our cattle.
Meanwhile we have cows and calves gathered in Greasy awaiting weaning planned for today if a tree hasn’t fallen across a fence up there. We’ll have to take some hay and check the damage tomorrow. We’re not done with the wind gusts.
Judges in California’s Third District Court of Appeal
ruled in late May that the bumblebee can legally fall
within the definition of a fish when it comes to the
definition of endangered species. “Although the term
fish is colloquially and commonly understood to refer
to aquatic species, the term of art employed by the
Legislature in the definition of fish in section 45 is not
so limited,” the trio of judges wrote.
– Western Livestock Journal, June 13, 2022
After work they like their G & Ts,
drawn to tonic and Tangueray,
slice of lime in an iced-down glass—
but some drink too much!
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged artichoke, bumblebees, endagered species, photography, poetry
We’re talking cattle
with a rising moon in June,
making plans for cows and calves—
the gather and sort to town,
where old friends shuffle
across the sale barn’s catwalk,
boot soles sliding, glad
to be moving among the living
when so many are not.
No one cares about our conversations,
the moon eavesdrops when it wants
just to measure our progress.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, moon, photography, poetry
Say good-bye to your mothers
for the long ride
all you children—
the truck is clean
shavings on the floor.
Driver said it snowed
before he left,
needed chains on Donner
rolling empty here in May.
We shake our heads
about the weather,
damn little rain,
the creek’s gone dry.
With a week of winds
the oaks have come alive,
tree limbs dancing
like separate tongues
trying to lick the sky.
We shipped our last load of Wagyu X calves to Snake River Farms on Tuesday as we continue to gather and wean our Angus calves. Both cows and calves have done well despite the extremely dry spring, in part because of our heavy culling that cut our cow herd by a third after only six inches of rain the year before. With drought across the Western US, cow numbers are down everywhere resulting in a stronger market than we’ve seen in years. With unpredictable weather, higher costs for grain and inflation, we may be raising beef we can’t afford to eat.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, cows, Drought, Dry Creek, photography, poetry, rain, Snake River Farms, Wagyu X Calves, weather
What calamity is greater than no contentment,
And what flaw greater than the passion for gain?
Tao Te Ching (“46”) Book of Songs)
Following ten years drought,
gusty evenings under gray clouds
add depth to blond hillsides—
contrasting tomorrow’s summer feed
that begs embracing,
that begs old flesh to awaken,
but begs no mention but to look
with an empty mind.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged c. 6th century B.C.E., Classical Chinese Poetry, contentment, Drought, empty mind, photography, poetry, weather
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