We are not sure anymore,
the sound and smell of it lost
to matters at hand without it,
so busy and mindful
of filling the void
best we can. The old saw
about not missing water
until the well goes dry
doesn’t cut the dust
settling nightly in my lungs,
in the corners of my eyes
and ears. I am not sure
of anything anymore
except that we would
welcome a change.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, weather
Looking out beneath black clouds at dawn
from a daze, it smells like rain too early
to do much good, yet I am cheery—
old friends returned, dark remnants
of a Mexican hurricane, precursors
perhaps to storms waiting in the wings
rehearsing lines, emphasizing pauses
and diction between thunder and lightening—
old flesh revived beneath a blanket.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, red sky, Sulphur Peak, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
Stepping back from our routines of irrigating, checking stockwater and increased feeding, August has been a delightful month, cooler overall than average. It feels like an early fall. Our cows are bred to start calving next month, and more than ever we’re excited to get on with the next phase of this business, another beginning of a new cycle as we approach our rainy season, described by an early California historian as that time when it might rain.
Two years of drought has forced us to reduce our cowherd by 40%, leaving less cows to supplement with hay, less four-wheel drive excursions into our upper country with expensive alfalfa. As a result, we have reduced the average age of our cows, focusing on the maternal traits of our most recent genetics as the core of our herd. We’re excited to get started and see the calves.
As always, we head into calving blind, not knowing what circumstances the weather will create, and not even knowing whether our reduced calf crop will generate enough to cover our future expenses—a true gamble, daily investing ourselves and all we have for an unknown payday—not exactly what I was taught in business school!
But it’s what we do, it seems, year in and year out, trying to make ranch improvements as we go just to make life easier as we get older. We’re ready for the calves and ready for some October rain to put this drought behind us.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged business, cows, Drought, photographs, rain, water, weather
The day unfolds in the black:
another circle of hay and water,
cows and bulls, a dusty track
on worn terrain now dreaming
on a cool, downcanyon draft
of bluster and damp—of drinking
dark clouds until the dust is mud.
Out of the shadows, the wild steps
lightly, all sharing the same dream
rising from the dry, dry earth.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Great Western Divide, Kaweah, Paregien Ranch, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather
These girls are two weeks away from calving as we begin a new season with little feed and less water, but we’re optimistic nonetheless, looking forward to a little rain and green grass.
Posted in Photographs
Tagged cows, Drought, Paregien Ranch, photographs, rain, water, weather
Though we don’t leave the canyon often, it’s always fun to speculate about moving to another place, like Victoria where summer temperatures are 25°F cooler than the San Joaquin Valley, where the urban pace is not as urgent as California, where the air is clean and clear. It’s been over a year since we’ve left the ranch on Dry Creek, the dust and drought, the cattle, but in Victoria our daydreams broke free enough to take on details, like trying on new clothes for a decent fit.
Concurrently, I was reading Wendell Berry’s “Imagination in Place”, a collection of essays that exemplify the concept of how belonging to a place can offer a more sustainable vision for it, our community, and ourselves. Reading from Victoria, it was clear that I had not exhausted what was possible on Dry Creek, despite a lifetime of observations, improvements and reams of poetry.
Unbeknownst to us, my daughter Jessica For the Archives who lives on the island of Kauai, was visiting Galiano Island with her husband and son. We’re lucky to see them once a year, so to have them near as the band rehearsed for their show on Salt Spring Island, to pick up where we last left off so effortlessly in a place that was not home to either of us (though Jessica had spent a year on Salt Spring Island) was an interesting mix of exhilarating emotions. We loved it.
Arriving home to the Islands just ahead of hurricanes Iselle and Julio, they were thrown into hurricane prep mode, boarding windows and stowing stuff. But living on a Noni farm with access to well water and a solar pump increased their sense of security, the whole experience enhancing their confidence to ride out most disasters—part of learning to live in a place.
She emails: “Curious how it’s been for you coming home. Sometimes it’s hard to return, other times it feels so good. Sometimes, it’s a little of both.”
It has not been an effort to fall back into the mundane routine of feeding and irrigating, checking stockwater and cows that will begin calving in a couple of weeks. The long shadows of August promise change, the monsoonal thunderheads in the high mountains and the gusts they bring to the canyon excite us to feel young and alive as summer begins its retreat into what we hope will be a normal year of grass and rain. We start over again in a place we know and trust.
Posted in Photographs
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, Galiano Island, Iselle, Julio, Kauai, photographs, place, rain, Salt Spring Island, Victoria, water, weather, Wendell Berry
My brown-skinned girl,
each dusty draw
seems softer, shadows
linger longer at the dawn
as the sun moves south
down ridgelines.
I begin to hear
the faint sound
of a light rain, early
on the roof—the musty
smell of it awakening
a primal surge of new life
for old veins on guard
for the slightest sign
telegraphed ahead
of a train in my mind
mesmerized by rivulets
finding their own way
to the creek running
into spring. Cottonwoods’
first yellow leaves
gathered by rolling gusts
up and down canyon—
you say you feel it too.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged August, Butchart Gardens, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, signs, weather
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, haiku, Hay, photographs, poetry, rain, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Drought, Greasy Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, rain, water, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
Summer months in the dry, dust
stirred by tiny birds, by the invisible
kiss of a breeze’s caress—so far
to go for water. Cows will lie down
and die when its gone, trusting spirits
and disassembled bones left for years
near waterholes to remind of empty eyes
gathered to wait in the shade for a drink—
nightmares that lurk on the edge of sleep,
ever ready, July through September.
So far to go, a day and a night at a time,
they take no holiday until it rains.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014
Tagged Drought, Greasy Creek, photographs, poetry, rain, water
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