With her iPhone, Terri caught me measuring and ciphering 9.25” of rain since December 24th on the Paregien Ranch. That’s how long it’s been since we’ve seen our cattle, since the rains began in earnest at the 1st of the year. With 16.70” here on Dry Creek thus far, we have already surpassed our average annual rainfall for the season that generally ends on April 30th.
I regret to report the creek
is still too high to cross,
running muddy with white caps
where summer cobbles baked
beneath bleached moss
housing aquatic bugs—little
towns anticipating rain—
a month’s work on the other side:
clearing roads of trees, fences
under limbs, slick black calves
waiting to be stretched for an iron
and I’m inside polishing poetry
instead of oiling my saddle
I’m almost too old to ride.
No one behind your desk
to report to for twenty years,
no one to argue how to spend
time and money improving
how to get the work done
when the creek subsides.
I’ve yet to learn
where the tree frogs go,
four years drought
between symphonies.
I regret to report I’m tired
of the world beyond our fences
where there is no truth,
no beauty left in the storm
of news I’m addicted to
waiting for my daily fix,
each outrageous episode
is drama enough
to keep from thinking,
to keep from working
to keep from wanting
anything more than
where the tree frogs go.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2017, Ranch Journal
Tagged photography, poetry, rain, tree frogs
Their song has survived hard ground,
the dry and dusty years, the dead and dying
trees without moisture, brittle broken roots—
sopranos, altos and baritones, a gleeful
impromptu chorus praising a month of rain,
they have survived sixty-six million years,
the asteroid’s collision, climate change
to serenade outside my window—symphonies
all this time before we walked this earth.
Like an old girlfriend,
she has moved in—first
to rise and last to bed, she stays
up to keep us from working
with more rain at once
than the earth can drink
and we say nothing, too
superstitious and polite
to complain within earshot—
with four year’s dust still
clogging veins and arteries,
we grin like idiots
stranded on an island,
water all around. In 1867,
the chickens starved in trees
and they gave boat rides,
water taxis up and down
Main Street for weeks
bringing food and freight
in from Stockton. She’s
been a good houseguest.
We’ve been busy returning our replacement heifers to the Wagyu bulls after we could ford the creek, 40 or so scattered over our neighbors with no watergaps between us. Moving some cows and calves away from the creek this morning before the first of three storms arrives to linger through Tuesday, about 3 more inches of rain predicted, but the the bulk of the storms are aimed at the wet and icy Northwest. Here we go again.
When the clouds form low,
the gods of rain climb onboard
to recuperate.
Dry Creek is running over 500 cfs this morning @ 6:00 a.m., after over an inch of rain in the past two days, over 6” for the first half of January—10 consecutive days of measurable precipitation—it’s wet! Any plans to cross the creek to fix fences and sort cattle won’t happen today. Furthermore, the moisture is deep, a good thing, but the only vehicle we have to get to the fence work will be the Kubota and I’d prefer to wait until Dry Creek is running less than 100 cfs.
Oh, I know the stories when Earl McKee and his sorrel horse swam the channel to ride five miles to free cattle locked in his Greasy corrals; or Clarence Holdbrooks swimming his red horse to move cattle stranded on the other side of the creek fifty years ago. They are my heroes still. All we have at risk with our current cattle mix-up is that our replacement heifers are running with the neighbor’s steers, at a time of the month, unfortunately, when the majority will be cycling, yet not exposed to the Wagyu bulls. But no livestock is at risk.
According to the 10-day forecast, we have a 5-day window to dry out before the next series of storms begin on the 18th, then 5 more days projected to leave 2.5” of rain. But no one’s complaining, yet, no one’s hollered ‘uncle’.
Not unlike the drought, Robbin and I have been making contingency plans. It dawned on me last night that making a ranch work within all the variables of the weather requires some hands-on creativity—that the art of cattle ranching starts with thinking well-outside the box. C’est la vie!
Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘Ambience’
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, photography, poetry, rain, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
Too wet for us to get off the road or cross the creek, but Kaweah Delta was back on Dry Creek cleaning the lower brush catchers this morning before the next storm starts about 4 p.m., forecast to bring 1.5 – 2” of rain through Thursday. Dry Creek: 236 cfs. Operator: Erik Avila.
No other love song, only
the comforting sound of fury
rumbling, rolling, churning
upstream like an old lover
returning to hold and stay
awhile with sycamores,
waist-deep, remembering
the boy with single-shot .410
reaching from the far bank
for dove in the top limbs
before the floods of ’67 & ’69
enveloped them, before
our high-water kisses in ’97
shared tears with rain—pure
ecstasy after so long dry.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2017
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, photography, poetry, rain, weather
10:00 a.m., January 8, 2017: 629 cfs
Not quite the storm of the decade, Dry Creek peaked at 1,390 cfs early yesterday morning. As of this morning, accumulated rainfall since the first of the year on lower Dry Creek has been a little over 4 inches, with yet another storm forecast to bring about 1.5″ due midday tomorrow—all welcome.
The continual gray clouds and rain of late seems miraculous when contrasted with the bare hills and dust of the past four years that have been permanently imprinted in our minds as more normal than not. The drought changed our thought processes and how we operate the ranch. And despite the ample availability of water streaming in nearly every canyon, I have often caught myself still worrying about stockwater. It’s how we lived, day to day, for a long time.
It’s good to see the creek running, the literal lifeblood of the canyon, a psychological lift as we inhale the moist air and relax a little before addressing the work that waits ahead of us. We have calves to brand and watergaps to fix as soon as we can physically get to them, when the roads dry out and creek goes down, which probably won’t be until next week if tomorrow’s storm materializes.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, photography, rain, water, weather
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