It’s swirling now around the planet
bumping the coasts of continents
with the miracle of rain
sustaining earth and flesh
by the design of details
yet to be noticed and digitized
when Dad would watch neighbor’s windmill
for confirmation, three days out
of the southwest, or by his journaled cycles
see seventy percent success. Instead of signs,
we await the forecast and cuss
the weatherman when wrong.
for Marge Stiles (1919-2005)
Lots of commentary on the cattle business lately with a focus on the price of beef. But relative to inflation, $20 will buy a cheeseburger, fries and a soda or a USDA Choice New York steak at Costco. What a deal!
Our 4-year drought (2012-2016) doesn’t seem that long ago when we had to cull some older bred cows for slaughter in order to feed the rest of our herd expensive hay. A good part of the reason why producing cow numbers are at a 75 year low. Though the media has its red meat theories, nobody mentions that the US population has more than doubled since 1951. This is simple to understand: supply and demand.
KEEPING SECRETS
How do they know, these old fat cows
that read a baggy sadness in my walk
among them checking irons as they pull
alfalfa stems apart to tongue green leaf
in the corral? The gates are set, waiting
for the truck to town. There is nothing
right about the moment, that they know—
little consolation in my voice, they eye me
suspiciously searching for details
in my muted gestures. If I told them
all I know of town, of auction rings
and rails, they would all revolt
for the brushy hills, lay fences down
to take their chances without water
through the summer—that I know.
-JCD (“Best of the Dry Years, 2012-2016”)
The three variables for the cattle business are weather, price and politics, any one which can reduce our once-a-year paycheck to a loss, but two or more can be an economic disaster—none of which have we, nor the government, any control over.
In the photo above, Robbin and I fed a few replacement heifers before the forecast Atmospheric River. The grass geminated last month has become short and spotty and we have to keep them in shape to cycle and breed when we turn the bulls out in two weeks—just part of the business.
As I write, it’s been raining overnight.
Posted in Photographs, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged beef, Drought, Dry Creek, photography, poetry, politics, rain, red meat, water, weather
Epaulets on his shoulders,
I remember the cocky strut
of the redwing blackbird
beneath the grain bucket
mornings when we saddled horses,
back when we had a pond,
wild ducks and nested cattails,
but not enough water
to watch it evaporate—
and I miss them, miss the
mallards come the gloaming
on whistling feathers
with bellyflop landings
to safely spend the night.
It’s all about water.
Posted in Poems 2025, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattails, poetry, pond, redwing blackbird, water
Far from the advertised Atmospheric River forecast, we are grateful for the much needed moisture overnight. Just a sprinkle when Robbin took this photograph yesterday evening as sunshine leaked through the approaching clouds.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric River, photographs, rain, water, weather
Exeter, California mural painted by Morgan McCall and Mitchell-Veyna in 1996
He ain't got no loan
Cant grow no corn
He ain't got no loan
- Levon Helm (“Poor Old Dirt Farmer”)
A cattlemen’s get-together,
a fund-raising dinner—awards
and not-so-silent auctions
at the end of summer
before the calves come,
to rub shoulders with the neighbors
who’ve gotten older
or by surprise disappeared
altogether
like the uneven ground shrinking
for grazing cattle
and our flat ground sinking
with too much pumping
on the same old cow.
The banks are nervous
with farm ground worth
half of what it was
without water
to plant and raise a crop
to feed us
and pay the growing costs
(plus taxes and interest)
and threaten to foreclose
on homesteads with row crops
or orchards in piles
that have become bare ground
to develop, for speculators
to make small fortunes
for corporate investors.
Mom and Pop
have moved to town,
following the kids
the land couldn’t support—
but it’ll be so much easier
for everyone to shop
for third world groceries
at the Wall Street outlets.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry
Tagged agriculture, banks, farms, food, loans, photography, poetry, SGMA, subsidence, Sustainable Groundwater management Act, water
With 5 different Edison meters for house and pumps, our mailbox has been full of these notices , one for each, for the past three weeks, usually two daily outages per week. Edison has noticed us for two more outages within the next week as they replace power poles and wire on this five mile stretch of Dry Creek Road. No power, no AC, no pumps and no water for man or beast during this “Heat Advisory” forecast near 110 degrees.
We grin and bear it and try to get along, which means pulling the refrigerator out of its cabinet, unplugging it, then after a few minutes, plugging it back in. We’ve lost about $800 worth of food thus far, but the freezers have come back on without assistance. I’ve learned to anticipate the timing of the outage to shut the water off to the house, which would be drained otherwise and filing with air to be compressed when the juice comes back on with pressures high enough to jeopardize our plumbing.
The contractors (ParWest) have been great, with the exception of an underground services employee who was driving our firebreaks after he left the gate open to the road for 46 first-calf heifers. He did get an earful.
Of course, all this concern comes after PG&E’s bankruptcy when its transmission lines ignited numerous fires in Northern California after which nearly half of the state became a high fire risk area. Fire insurance doubled or tripled or left homes uninsurable. Edison will probably lobby the PUC to raise its rates to pay for all this maintenance it should have doing all along. C’est la vie.
Posted in Ranch Journal
Tagged heat advisory, ParWest, power, Southern California Edison, water
All the thirsty hearts
have sucked the dog dish down
beyond the reach of the panting Titmouse,
nervous little bastard bobbing
empty-beaked at his favorite waterhole
below the nozzle, hose and bib
during this two-week heat wave
of highs in the teens, like every summer here
in the San Joaquin.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2024, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged heat, photography, poetry, water, weather
… (I) don’t think hurricanes
like to follow predicted paths.
–Brian Grant
The prognosticators have claimed
the climate spotlight—used science
to explain why we read poetry
when our dehydrated atmosphere
rains rivers and spawns hurricanes
while the earth is spinning faster than it should—
its fractious friction warming waters
to forge the passion of whales and otters
to object and retaliate.
Watching the weather map of Baja California,
new science is driving out a percentage
of the old that we believed was true.
Posted in POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged climate change, Dry Creek, hurricane hilary, otters, poetry, rain, science, water, weather, whales
Called too soon, persistence rooted
where peaceful dreams beneath their leaves
spilled downhill at dawn—a slow awakening
like death in reverse, never thinking
of other ways to pass the time. Weathered
skeletons of young Blue Oaks cling
to where their acorns fell to rest
before the wet and stormy springs
kept a chance of an idyllic life alive.
Truth is: no right or wrong of it—
no philosophy to make fit
what we’ll not need to understand.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023
Tagged Acorns, Blue Oaks, death, death in reverse, Drought, life, photography, poetry, rain, water, weather
The magic remains along the creek
spread wide with naked cobbles pressed
together, exposed by flooding sheets
that ripped its sandy banks before
leaving the channel changed—
a landscape rearranged for the moment!
A summer gurgle, herons and egrets come
to wade abandoned pools of pollywogs
shrinking into moss-covered gravel.
Green cockleburs rise-up from ribbons
of sand, high-water veins bleached white
until colored or carried away with the burrs.
The truth is endless here—it will keep
saying the same thing in different ways
well after we are gone.
Posted in Photographs, POEMS 2023, poetry, Ranch Journal
Tagged Atmospheric Rivers, cobbles, cockleburs, photography, poetry, rain, truth, water, weather
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