Tag Archives: photography

Sun Cup / Camissonia

Posted on October 8, 2016 by John | Leave a comment

We’re on the right track identifying yesterday’s wildflower thanks to Richard’s comment and friends of Facebook friends from CNPS. I’ve included the larger plant because I can’t visually confirm suggestions from Calflora photos, i.e. Camissonia contorta, Camissonia campestris, Camissonia pallida , etc. and to offer more information to those who’ve made suggestions.

This Camissonia is tough, right in the path to the corrals where a hundred head passed over it several times this spring. Our fate does not hinge on absolute identification, but far more interesting than this election.

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Dry Creek, photography, Sun Cup, wildflowers

Nameless

Posted on October 7, 2016 by John | 5 comments

I found a little patch of these interesting wildflowers on a well-traveled, sandy bank of Dry Creek in mid-April 2016. At first I thought they were Pygmy Poppies, but they may not be poppies at all.

Flower Friday

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Dry Creek, flower-friday, photography, wildflowers

THE WORK

Posted on October 6, 2016 by John | 7 comments

                                        I realize that in terms of body and spirit,
                                        body grows sick while spirit’s immune,
                                                  – Po Chü-i (“Climbing Mountains in Dream”)

Like a wall, hooks in hand,
I’ve scaled bales of hay stacked
too far off the ground to fall

for nearly fifty winters, boot toes
feeling for a crack and hang
while synapse talks to flesh—

a longer conversation now
for this ascension. I can fly
in my dreams, scramble

like a squirrel up a tree.
Awake: my spirit intact, in touch
with heart and mind’s belief

in these old knees they will escape
after the truck is loaded, cattle
fed—when the work is done.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016

Tagged photography, poetry

Hilltop

Posted on October 5, 2016 by John | 3 comments

Wordless Wednesday

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Posted in Photographs

Tagged grass, photography, Wordless Wednesday

TO LIVE FOR

Posted on October 4, 2016 by John | Leave a comment

Late spring rains last into October,
empty-headed wild oats bow
to a southwest wind suggesting change

from broiling days—maybe rain.
Snakes crawl out from under shade,
backs to the sun, warm their bellies

in fine trail dust. Blue Oaks shed
large dark acorns glinting
in dry leaves like burnished gems

and we are rich, breathe deep relief
as fresh calves find steady legs
to run without direction, learn to stop.

We gladly give all up to chance
and certain change believing
this is the time we live for.

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

Tagged Blue Oak, Calves, photography, poetry, rain, weather, wildlife

Hereford Show Calf

Posted on October 2, 2016 by John | 6 comments

It was chilly this morning when Robbin and I left to look at the calves on the Paregien Ranch, going up Ridenhour Canyon along the way. Though we employ a few select Hereford bulls for heterosis that have added frame, durability and a calmer disposition to our cowherd, we typically don’t have too many straight Hereford calves. At 30 days old, we caught this bull calf posing in the canyon’s early light as if he was aspiring to become an FFA/4H show calf.

Since we posted a photograph with his mother at five days old, I thought it appropriate to include a photo of his father, Ruger 119 from Mrnak Herefords West, ready to go to work for his fifth year on this ranch.

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged bulls, Calves, cows, Hereford, Mrnak Herefords West, photography

POGUE CANYON

Posted on October 1, 2016 by John | 8 comments

Half a mountain slipped away
to move the river south, left
alluvium of clay and granite rock—

a good spring in a steep draw
collecting stories at a pause
with brittle bones and rattlesnakes

for spice—half a century saved
to hunt and wander from the flats,
to ride to gather heifers with my father,

all the alliterative murmurs
that damned me and God
when the wind is almost right.

Half a mountain slipped away
to gather by myself, holding
highlights of the boy I used to be.

Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘Nostalgia’

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016

Tagged photography, poetry, weekly-photo-challenge

Tarweed

Posted on September 30, 2016 by John | Leave a comment

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Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged flower-friday, photography, wildflowers

Born Without Fear

Posted on September 29, 2016 by John | 2 comments

A few days old and separated by 150 yards from his mother among a line of cows feasting on alfalfa, this bull calf returns home, to one of several shady pockets or nurseries where the calves are laid down after nursing. In good shape, we try to limit feeding this bunch of third-calf cows to once a week to reduce the pandemonium when the hay arrives—a new experience for this calf fresh into this pasture. Every cow’s head down, he’d walked the line back and forth, his calls unanswered, hot and frothy when he and another older calf wandered towards me, the older gently guiding, head to neck, the way to the nursery. The older calf immediately claimed the shade he must have risen from when the hay arrived, the younger calf still assessing his place in the world through the twigs of a fallen sycamore.