Dust trails behind
plodding black cows off the hills
to water, bellies stretched with calf,
while we drink coffee—
and we are proud of these cows
who grazed uphill to bed
while we drank Tangueray and tonic,
slice of grapefruit instead of lime.
An acquired taste, raising cattle
through years of drought—
a bittersweet love affair
with the ground that sustains us.
We know her every crease
and wrinkle, and which leak water—
all of her magic spots
forever branded in our brains.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
I still call it “the Swamp”
where thirsty Valley Oaks
centuries-old shed their limbs
among barkless skeletons,
bleached bones like flesh
waiting to fall into the next life.
Half-mile across on Christmas Eve,
1955, the Kaweah flowed to the doors
of our ’53 Buick—headlights
diving into oncoming wakes
like Captain Nemo’s submarine.
Not free to run when it wants,
we have held the river up
in the hills for sixty winters,
only to let it run all at once
across the Valley to irrigate
orchards and summer crops—
no kids fishing from shady banks
a lazy river recharging wells.
We can’t fill the dams we have,
yet cotton trailer billboards suggest
that dams can make more water
without looking to the sky.
Our country is dry and short. We’ve pulled the bulls off the irrigated pasture to make room for our bred heifers due to begin calving by the middle of September. We will have to feed the bulls in this pasture where Allie and Terri were driving a few to water last week. Even though we’ve sold 25% of our cows, we continue to step up the amount of hay we’re feeding with no idea of when it will end or whether it will pay for itself in the long run. But if we have to sell more cows, we just don’t want them to be thin.
Cooper’s Hawk
under a rainbird’s shower,
yellow eyes
mermaid and frog
before taking a drink
at the ‘sip and dip’.
Too hot to hurry
in the heat
we all grow tame.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
Tagged Cooper's Hawk, Drought, water, wild
Pulling the first of 12 joints of 20’ pipe plus the pump this morning after losing water last evening. We weaned our last bunch of calves Thursday when we hauled them out of Greasy, and were celebrating our good fortune until the pump quit. Fortunately, Willits Equipment had time and personnel to replace the pump and control box by 1:00 this afternoon. This well also serves our house.
Just one of the joys of rural living, but we wouldn’t trade it for the alternative.
Midday siesta, I dream of water running
down the Tule, ouzels dipping, or
beer cooling in an eddy on the Kern—
of you and I, our faces streaked with rain
as if we were crying—love in our eyes.
All the mud-stuck trucks, leap-frogging,
winches whining as the clouds cracked,
bursting with more of the same.
>
What else can we look forward to
this afternoon, inches from the Solstice,
what else can we do but dream? The air
is thin and burns the lungs. Leaves curl
in the garden while cows commiserate
in the shade of sycamores and oaks,
all their stories stored within rings,
chatter from the good old days.
>
And what of native wisdom banked
in their massive trunks, or smooth gossip rocks
in the living Live Oak shade? All the secrets
we have lost to progress, all the important
unimportant things that have not saved time,
but accelerated it and our poor hearts
just trying to keep up. 110 degrees at noon,
what else can we do but dream?
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2021, Ranch Journal
Tagged dream, heat, progress, rivers, siesta, tree rings, water, wisdom
Even though I haven’t been in the mood to post anything, I would be remiss not to journal one of the worst drought years in my lifetime, less rainfall (6.19”) than we received in 2013-14 (7.78”) during our 4-year drought of 2012-2016. After feeding hay all summer long into the fall in 2013, we finally had to sell half of our cowherd in 2015.
Currently, all that our steep hillsides have to offer is a short blond fuzz of dry grass that will soon be dust. I remember the drought of ’77 when the cows licked the grass seed to augment what hay we fed them. Knowing what’s ahead, we’ve begun gathering to wean early and have already sent a bunch of good cows to the kill plant, many of which had calves in their bellies. Due to the lack of snow in the Sierras, there’s little irrigation water to grow hay and the price is high, while cows aren’t bringing much money. Furthermore, stockwater from our natural springs in the upper country will be in short supply by fall——a perfect storm.
As we cull our cowherd, we’re focusing on a young nucleus as we realize that we’ll not get the money we’ll spend on hay this year with next year’s calf crop. Nevertheless, we’re plodding ahead: leaning forward as we take another step and praying for early rains this fall.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged culling, Drought, feeding, Hay, irrigation, kill plant, water, weaning
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
This old ground is on the move and we have changed it with our dreams of improvement that humanity demands to level mountains, harness rivers, pump valleys to collapse with efficiency and startling success— then we foul our surgeries. Beyond the road and fences, these bare hillsides have begun to breathe since she spent the night, whispering upon dry leaves clinging to the last of life. I am awakened, as if she never left, wrapped in the soft applause of her arrival bringing the gentle miracle of moisture as this old ground comes back to life.
A pair of precocious little gray birds I’ve never noticed before have spent the summer with Robbin and me, drinking several times a day at the dog’s water on the deck. Smaller than our Western Flycatcher and with a slight crown like a Kingbird, we assumed they were juveniles. At 111 degrees they water more frequently now, arriving open beaked, the female seems shier and more bedraggled than the male. The best ID I can come up with is that they are Wood Pewees, but I defer to others more qualified.
Besides the livestock water troughs that are difficult for many birds to drink from, our inadvertent plumbing leaks draw a wide variety of birds from all around. Now that the spring Bird Wars are over, a territorial drama where the eggs and babies of one nest feed the babies of a larger species, they seem to have found peace in the shade of our yard. Woodpeckers cling to sprinkler heads to get a drop at a time, coveys of quail include a pipeline leak on their daily rounds and Towhees cool beneath the mist of our garden irrigation. It’s quite a show if you can stand to be outside.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged birds, photography, poetry, water, wildlife, Wood Pewee
