Tag Archives: photography

Twins

Posted on September 27, 2016 by John | 4 comments

She was not thrilled to have twin Angus calves, but we’ve been watching 3024 since they were born ten days ago, having gone so far as to make arrangements for bottle feeding one of them if necessary. As it turns out, the calf on the left was the one roused by two coyotes in our post of September 17th, when hours old and left in the middle of the pasture. It’s not unusual for a cow with twins to abandon the weakest, but now this cow seems to have acquiesced to her plight, both calves healthy and much stronger than they were. Whether she is keeping better track of them both, or the weaker calf is keeping better track of her is another question. She has plenty of milk and if she can raise them both, she’ll do a better job than we can do.

4 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Calves, cows, coyote, photography, twins

BRUSH STROKES

Posted on September 26, 2016 by John | Leave a comment

Summer breezes comb
late spring rains of golden hair,
fine-stemmed wild oats ripened

in the rocks with a trace of lichen
rouge for looks—our sexy
centerfold to hang and frame

in the back of our minds,
our cluttered caves of thought,
to remember her by.

SEPTEMBER DAWN

Posted on September 25, 2016 by John | 7 comments

                    But God himself comes often and stays long,
                    when the castrati’s singing disturbs Him.
                                        – Ranier Maria Rilke (“The Voices”)

Within the quietude of dawn
streaked in yellow flame
between charred black shadows

when the sun peeks low beneath
the branches shedding leaves,
I hear voices in the canyon,

from the ridges and the draws,
of the generations gathered
where women left their track

ground in stone, and men
built barns and fences,
some yet leaning into time

unknown, for a different breed
of cattle and of dreams—
a chorus clear and strong.

And all the working hands
that left no mark upon the land
they still inhabit singing

harmony and peace
within the quietude of dawn
streaked in yellow flame.

“A Voice for the Voiceless”

7 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016

Tagged A Voice for the Voiceless, Dry Creek, photography, poetry

REFRESHED RELIEF

Posted on September 23, 2016 by John | 2 comments

All this time, decades of learning and relearning
reapplied to new devices designed to save time—
to bank, spend or squander somewhere in the future

with no guarantees made selfish sense, a singular
detachment from the congested urgencies swirling
like autumn’s colored leaves in a quest of rest

and peace. How he craved the storm’s building
energies, the dark electricity thundering rain
to erase time’s tracks, that might freeze the moment

into days and weeks. Old flesh come alive
with the prospect of starting over again, cotyledons
of grass for cows and calves—a refreshed relief.

2 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

Tagged Calves, cows, photography, poetry, rain, weather

EQUINOX 2016

Posted on September 21, 2016 by John | Leave a comment

Terri Drewry photo

Long shadows on blond feed tall,
standing skeletons of oaks from drought,
the gray cow caught talking with an iPhone
to her new, silver-belly calf.

No audio, too far to catch the vocabulary
lesson, the inflection of each murmur
into song, the guttural beginnings of all words—
a universal language of basic sounds

with deep meanings that defy time
and cultures, that survive the latest plague
of progress and the genius of science—
no better teacher than a mother cow.

GIRLS ON GREEN

Posted on September 12, 2016 by John | 4 comments

Heads down, our future grazes green
on the edge of time, on ground
the river met with Dry Creek—

all the round cobbles mined
to build the county seat gone wild
with willows and cottonwoods,

natives claiming space we named
between the Kaweah and Wutchumna
Hill. Nothing is the same for us

or them as they mature to become cows.
Heads down, it is easy to forget
to look up at where we’ve come from.

Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘Edge’

4 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal

Tagged cows, Dry Creek, Kaweah River, photography, poetry, weekly-photo-challenge, Wuchumna, Yokuts

IN SEPTEMBER

Posted on September 8, 2016 by John | 7 comments

Progress parallels the creek,
follows a crumbling dirt track paved
up canyon past the end of power poles

and the double yellow line,
the busy bulk of it beyond
the hazy ridgeline—

beyond thinking past water
when the creek is dry
in September.

Caravans of Christians
craving altitude, the new shine
of fifth-wheels pulling for the pines—

the guttural rumble, leather herds
of Harleys and the bright spandex
of cyclists pass us by

as if we were a landscape
to endure along the way
to something better.

7 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016

Tagged Dry Creek, photography, poetry, water

New Year

Posted on September 7, 2016 by John | 3 comments

Try as we might to push our calving date back two weeks to avoid the first of September heat, the bulls would hear nothing of it, repeatedly visiting our neighbor’s virgin heifers intended for Wagyu bulls. Also, we were under the influence of Big El Niño prognostications, wet weather for the first half of December that could hamper hauling the bulls up the hill to our older cows. With the stars and daylight hours aligned with our bulls’ internal clocks, we opted to let them go to work rather than having to bring them home and fixing fence everyday.

Nine months later, our own internal calendars click to new beginnings as the calves come, a new season and new year as we begin to leave summer behind and wait for the first rains to start the green feed, that unpredictable time of year when we harvest grass with cows to raise another crop of calves. Welcoming the shorter days, we’re saddled-up and ready, looking forward to another wild ride.

3 Comments

Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal

Tagged Calves, photography

Another Ibis

Posted on September 4, 2016 by John | 2 comments

While checking the replacement heifers on the irrigated pasture yesterday morning, I almost ran over this Ibis in the Kubota, looking at cattle instead of where I was going. In July 2015, I photographed a Glossy Ibis on the shore of our irrigation pond.

Fairly tame birds, we must be on their migration route.