The birds are pairing up
as crimson-chested finches
dance and sing upon the railing,
beak-to-beak foreplay,
wing feathers quivering
before making a home
as house-hunting quail
split from their covey
to explore the garden.
A flock of strutting blackbirds
gets acquainted
while combing the ground,
and the killdeer practice
hollowing nests
in the gravel drive
analyzing traffic
before settling down
to hatch four eggs.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Blackbirds, House Finches, Killdeer, quail, spring
When the rains come right
and knee-deep green feed hides
beneath Fiddleneck in the flats,
we forget the bare, baked slopes
cut by dusty cow trails plunging
to the murmur of the diesel truck
spilling alfalfa flakes the length
of undressed pastures—lost bawling
calves and slow thin cows.
So blessed to have disremembered
the lean dry times, we believe
the miracle is normal, that Hera
and her daughters will set-up camp
and stay a fruitful future for man
and beast, creeks in the canyons—
a tangible fantasy for the thriving
when the rains come right
to change our way of thinking.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, miracles, photography, poetry, rain, spring, weather
The foothill poppies are beginning to show on our south slopes as temperatures hover near 70 degrees. The white popcorn flowers and orange fiddlenecks have begun to claim the gentler ground in what appears to be the beginning of a colorful wildflower year with the ample moisture (Atmospheric River) we received last month.
Beginning this evening, forecasts vary as temperatures drop into the low thirties with a cold front that will engulf California. Weathermen are predicting snow down to 1,000 feet, nearly 1,000 feet below this photograph. There is even some talk of fourteen inches of snow in Three Rivers. Furthermore, Weather Underground predicts rain on all but one day for the next two weeks.
The road to the Paregien ranch has just dried out and cleared of fallen trees, but we still haven’t been able to get to the calves to brand up there. We lost a month in time to the Atmospheric River in January, but two weeks of predicted rain with a week to dry out puts that branding into the middle of March at the soonest and our calves are almost too BIG to handle.
Nothing is certain in this business, but as a weather dependent livelihood we’ll have to be ready to adapt. (Cut another load of dead-standing Manzanita and Blue Oak yesterday, at least we should be warm).
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged photographs, poppies, rain, snow, spring, weather, wildflowers, winter
Always a hole in the law,
in the black sky where the March moon
bores into your mind,
along the borders
between you and Nature
tirelessly encroaching.
She lives in town, the nurse
taking my blood pressure,
wants to know about the moths
driving her inside the house
with her kids
on the block of last night’s shooting.
I can’t imagine trying to sleep in a city.
First 80-degree day,
surrounded by colorful pastures
of wildflowers, thigh-high,
we can feel the snakes
crawling out of hibernation—
even the dogs are cautious,
as they check last year’s beds
dug in the shade of the deck.
The ebb and flow of skirmishes,
prey and predator, man and beast
until the end of time.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged Gopher Snake, human nature, nature, spring
The dark hole in the barn
that once was leafy, fine-stemmed alfalfa
for six-months feeding, rides on a rain
as wildflowers get ahead of the green
making color, making seed—a spectacle
that will eclipse the hopes and dreams
that drew us to this tipping point in time.
Seems we’re always on the cusp of perfect
storms, praying for enough that we might
meld into the wealth of these steep slopes
we belong to, marvel at the cattle
and forget about the money and the market
for a moment as we and our old neighbors
hold invisible hands and hobble around
the maypole to appease our pagan genes.
Last flash of limbs
in a pagan dance
as shadows crawl
across the creek
to pull night’s curtain up
into the stars.
The canyon has come to life
with promises of spring—
birds and trees are talking
above the bulls’ primal bellowing—
tension spills with energy.
Shrill yips and howls
in every draw ignites
another all-night
canine celebration
to exasperate the dogs.
Even the old flesh perks up
with fresh strategies,
just in case the market’s up
and we get more rain—
just enough to do it over again.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2022, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle business, celebration, pagan dance, rain, spring, sycamores, water, weather
He waits upon the beam
that holds the rafters up,
dry weed in his beak.
He chirps incessantly
as she constructs a nest
with what he brings her.
He seems to have forgotten
the ear-piercing love songs
from her red-breasted suitors
prancing on the railing
now that he has a partner
to get the real work done.
Swirl of savage sunsets,
Swirl of the dead
Somehow, still living.
– Adrian Louis (“Degrees of Drought”)
Bribed with little water,
we have enticed Redbuds
to brighten our gardens
with cardinal colors
regardless of rainfall
before they leave
green hearts in spring.
Even the bare hills
sigh and grin relieved
for the living, love us
for our generous nature
that keeps the wild alive
and close to our swirling
yearnings satisfied.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
Tagged Adrian Louis, Drought, Redbuds, spring, water
Another round of Blue Oak
from the limb droughts have cured
to fall with a crash in the yard—
after the calves were marked
and friends were fed and gone,
you and I and a bottle of wine
before the fire we cooked upon
waiting for the pillowed clouds
to collect and turn dark gray—
our forecast rain. Tough filaree
looks like the dirt it’s hanging on,
leaves red and brown and in between—
last chance for feed this spring.
One wonders why we do this
to become the grass we need.
Blessed are we with the diversions
of spring in bloom: colored orchestrations
of multisyllabic assonance rhyming
with short-clipped awe: an ever-changing tune
that steals the senses midst tumultuous times.
Blessed are we to be alive with work to do.
Always the War to measure the world by:
patriotic hawks enlisting reluctant doves
as fodder that shocked us into an explosion
of lyrics and melodies—an awakening
for music, a renaissance for humanity
we pray may come this way again soon.
drycrikjournal 