It’s quiet now, she’s come and gone
without a sound, spent the night
without a word as we slept
deeply by the fire. She kept it dark
without the stars, hid the pregnant moon
that shed the rain lightly through the clouds.
We don’t know her name, shy goddess—
but we will leave the light on
with pomegranate jelly at the door.
– – – – –
0.63″ plus bugs
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged clouds, Drought, moon, photography, poetry, pomegranate jelly, rain, rain gauge, stars, weather
Lesley Fry Photo
Spectacular weather yesterday on the Paregien ranch. Above 2,000 feet in elevation and twenty 4 x 4 minutes from the asphalt, it is a magic place rich with native and anecdotal history. Currently, the feed is short but still greening since the 1.45” we got on the 6th, 7th and 8th of this month. The cattle have left the flats for the slopes and ridges where the new grass is growing faster, protected from frost by the remnants of old feed. Early last week the prognosticators canceled today’s rain, but have now forecast a significant amount for Thursday into the weekend. (We’ll see.)
While pumping water, looking for the neighbor’s errant bull and measuring the corrals for a much-needed makeover, Robbin and I spent the morning with the Fry/Fox family cutting Manzanita and Live Oak deadfall for our woodstove because of my tendonitis. With our many hands, what fun we had!
It’s been several months since I carelessly cut a tree in the road that knocked me down, damaging the rotator cuff of my right shoulder. And about a month since compensating for it to pop a tendon, sounding like a gun shot, in my left forearm. Enlisted now in medical protocol and procedures, it’s taken a couple of weeks to confirm the damage with an MRI. Apparently surgery and long recovery is my best option. I see the Dr. again in 4 weeks, meanwhile I’m supposed to do nothing.
I am amused that only children and seniors measure their age in half-years, kids because they want to be older, and seniors, I suppose, eager to numerically reassure themselves of their existence. I’m 74 ½ and need to act my age. My life, our life, on this ranch has always been physical and it’s been too easy for me to forget I’m no longer fifty or sixty building fence or bucking hay. But to have our good friends and neighbors volunteer to help us get some firewood in was truly a wonderful gift on a beautiful day. Thank you Chuck and Lesley Fry, Katy and Cody Hanson, and Allie and Shawn Fox. You guys are the best!
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged age, firewood, Live Oak, Manzanita, medical procedures, neighbors, photography, rain, tendonitis, weather
Nothing near, the long-term forecast
changes on the hour as we look out
over Christmas color, out of storage early,
at independent calves at water,
and our persistent green still breathing
with each dawn’s dew. Almost everything
we need is near-at-hand before Thanksgiving
with a welcome splash of cheer
as we wait for rain, like always.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cheer, Christmas, Drought, Dry Creek, forecast, photography, poetry, rain, Thanksgiving, weather
Color comes with cold and wet
within the canyon, even before
the creek flows or sycamores burn
leather brown to shed their clothes—
white bodies tangled in a pagan dance
to gods unknown. Orioles return
as sparks in the brush, levity
in the pink overcast of dawn.
We glean the fallen skeletons
of oak and brittle manzanita
to fill the woodstove. Curious cattle
come to wonder what we’re about.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, colors, Drought, Dry Creek, Fire, firewood, Manzanita, photography, poetry, rain, sycamores, weather
Three-day one-inch-rain,
warm wet dirt germinating
green hair on steep slopes.
(Click to enlarge)
Posted in Haiku 2022, Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cotyledons, earth, germination, haiku, miracle, nature, photography, poetry, rain, seed, water
After a slow three-day rain,
clay dust dark brown and firm,
we think we see a tinge of green
before wet seed has time to burst
with open-handed cotyledons
through the saturated dirt.
Yesterday, on the optometrist’s screen
I see my eyeballs and optic nerves
that anticipate such good fortune:
bare ground, sloping hillsides
carpeted with short green—
a start to change our luck.
for Terence Miller
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cotyledons, Drought, eyes, grass, green, optic nerve, optometrist, photography, poetry, rain, seed, weather
The weather here is queen,
haggard goddess dodging phone calls,
prayers—she gathers storms
like cattle to market
leaving empty pastures bare to cook
for sometimes years—
sometimes centuries displacing
civilizations for archeological
supposition and conjecture.
We cannot know her mind—
she is old and forgetful
and often wanders in a haze.
But when we smell her
approaching on the wind
our dry skin tightens as
we become like reckless children
turned loose to prepare
the fires for her arrival,
be it wrath or cordial,
for she is queen
of eternity.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, nature, personification, photography, poetry, rain, weather
The cows know the way
following the idling sounds
of the diesel hay truck
to the feed grounds just beyond
the glacial slab of granite
honeycombed with grinding holes
of another era
when 300 Natives
made a living in this canyon.
After the flood
they moved the road
away from the creek in ’69—
exposing human bones.
The cast iron well head
for the red brick slaughterhouse
stands like a gravestone
among dead oak limbs—for
a time between then and now.
A cow turns back to attend to her calf
swallowing dust, another murmurs
trust that there will be hay.
* * * *
0.28″
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, Drought, Dry Creek, dust, feed truck, glacial slab, grinding holes, Natives, photography, poetry, rain, weather
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
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
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