Sometimes we ride high enough
to see the backs of eagles, bronze
wings tracing steep hillside oats
a glide. Even horses pause
to take notice. You can feel envy
rise beneath you, becoming one
another for a moment—prolonged
instants we crave, yet cannot hold
with minds a grip. But letting go
we float the thermals to Olympus
to bring back lightning, thunder—
with luck a poem and some rain.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
The cleaning lady
came to sweep the dust away
finally with rain.
Posted in Haiku 2016, Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged haiku, photography, poetry, rain, weather
Wind bangs against the mountains,
cold on warm rips and tears
cracks in air as crooked fingers
touch the ground with ‘lectric
yellow light to spark a roar
upon the metal roof in panting
pulses beneath soft gray
as if the gods were making love
in a bass drum, small canyon room
upstairs spawning muddy rivulets
towards a dry creek bed between
wet sycamores undressing
long white limbs suggestively
spilling November tans and browns
upon the green to stand naked
before an eager flow gathering
rafts of clothes upstream—
or as angry as the 60s
marching to make love
instead of war, or vice versa—
or with the best intentions
for all we’ve done today,
come to wash the dirty laundry,
our tracks and waste away.
1.81″ @ 7:30 a.m.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
A light rain arrived before daylight and continued through yesterday morning, 0.12”, not much, but enough to brighten-up the grass while the girls fed and I fixed fence around the bull pen, trapping the last of the bulls at large for the past week in the riparian along Dry Creek—beyond which our replacement heifers selected for Wagyu bulls are only a narrow pasture away—all the usual testosterone tension and shenanigans that’s hard on fences as the calendars in their bullheads suggest re-establishing the pecking order before it’s time to go to work on December 1st. We will acquiesce, as we did last year, choosing to put them to work a little early rather than fix fence until our target date.
A decade or so ago at the Visalia Livestock Market ‘Off the Grass Sale’, I was admiring some Angus eight-weight steer calves in the ring that belonged to Art Tarbell, perhaps the best calves offered that day. Retired as the local brand inspector, I’d known Art all my life, a kind and honest man. I asked him when he put his bulls out, suspecting that his calves might be a little older than ours. He chuckled saying, “Oh, they sorta put themselves out!”
So much for trying to manage bulls by the numbers.
More rain has begun to appear from several sources in the forecast for Friday and Sunday after Thanksgiving, no gulleywashers, but hope for a little more moisture to add to our meager 1.50” so far this season. Our own unscientific forecast has storms arriving Sunday through Tuesday, close enough and reassuring. Nothing I’ve seen or read indicates that this will be anything but another dry year for the southern two-thirds of California and the United States.
More disturbing news from Daniel Swain’s ‘The California Weather Blog’ http://weatherwest.com/archives/author/thunder: “Over the past few weeks, a truly extraordinary “heat wave” has been taking place at a time of year when temperatures should be plummeting to bitterly cold values after the onset of “Polar Night.” Near the North Pole, surface temperatures have been at or near the freezing point for an extended period of time–around 35 degrees F above average, and not cold enough to allow for the formation of sea ice. This extreme warmth, combined with unusual wind patterns, have combined to produce record-low sea ice extent across much of the Arctic Ocean basin. In fact, (apparently) for the first time in the observational record, significant multi-day sea ice losses have occurred during the peak freeze-up season. Meanwhile, in Northern Siberia, extreme cold and incredibly deep snowfalls have been observed–itself likely a consequence of the lack of sea ice to the North. This has led to a rather incredible atmospheric setup where actual temperatures currently increase as one goes north from Eurasia to the North Pole.”
That’s the latest, we gird our loins, but ever thankful for what we have.
…my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.
– Wendell Berry (“The Wish To Be Generous”)
Hemmed in silver moonlight, scattered
clouds linger over hills, no wet reflection
of the porch light. She has come and gone
without waking me with thunder, pellets
on the roof, not a leaky drip from the eave,
leaving nothing to remember her passing
by—not even her musty petrichor perfume
in the damp dark air to soothe my senses—
gone without a thought of waking me.
From a distance in the daylight, islands
of purple filaree look like dirt in graying
green, rolling dusty plumes follow cows
into water, yet they don’t seem to worry
into another winter without rain. Too
familiar, I read the signs with each synapse
shortened by the hard and dry. Too long
in the same place, I can see the weather
and the world have changed around me—
changed me as I retreat and try to adapt
like summer weed seed over time:
impervious to thirst and political herbicides.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016
Tagged Drought, photography, poetry, politics, rain, weather, Wendell Berry
Rare harmony, the grays and greens
spill off the hills like stringed music
in the gloaming, naked oaks in granite,
cows and calves bent to new grass
step slowly mowing earth and rain
at work in the bright of day and night.
Like sea tides rising, each blade eager
twists towards the moon in cool darkness,
drawn to listen to heaven’s basic chords.
A wild sound is playing now outside
while waiting for a cloud, for the strum
of winter storms to prolong the song.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, grass, photography, poetry, weather, wildlife
It could be spring in November
waiting for a rain, yet we worry
about weather we can’t control—
complain to gods we have invented:
separate specialists leaving signs
we let tease and disappoint us
within the space we vest our lives.
But the Glory Hallelujah chorus
roars when it storms off every hillside,
pours down draws. Yet beneath dark sky
duals of thunderbolts, heavens at war,
we cherish our electric helplessness
and raise a glass to Gods all.
It could be spring in November, or
another religion for which we ride.
I turn away, blinded by November’s
first light, Redbud hearts enflamed
with last season’s feed on green
burning yellows between dark shadows
with the news, with disbelief.
I retreat to calm counsel with cattle:
scattered pairs, calves fresh with life
finding legs to fly—buck and run
figure-eights without direction always
circling back, showing off for mom.
We will work the heifers anyway—
give them everything we can
to make them attractive to Wagyu,
their first bulls. And we will wait,
as we always do, for rainy days.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016
Tagged Calves, cows, photography, poetry, politics, rain, weather
Heading into winter, black cows yet fat
sucking calves—damp, thick-piled green after rain—
everyone is clean and shiny off the hill, parading
to water early to laze in the shade. Pages
of poetry shuffle across a desk messy with business,
an untitled collection scattered and spread,
collected and clipped faraway in my head
from our family of cows, from short remarks:
our song of words and phrases overflowing
with the water troughs at Windmill Spring,
spilling too spontaneously to require editing.
We needed to collaborate, to escape the loud
and demanding devils too close to home.
In this place, we are blessed with native eyes
and forgotten tongues—where we can relate
long poems in the luxury of untamed silence.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, Paregien Ranch, photography, poetry, weather
As recollections fade, I’m careful not to claim the recent as the biggest or the best of anything, but this past week’s germination of grass is as thick as any I can recall. How well it will endure the above-average temperatures predicted to push 80 degrees for the next ten days remains to be seen—no rain in sight.
Yesterday, Robbin and I made the Kubota trip to the Paregien Ranch with salt, mineral and the last protein lick until next summer while checking the cows, calves, and the rain gauge: 1.44”. More like spring than fall, our new green grass, even at a higher elevation of 2,200 feet, has begun to usurp our ample old feed. Cow numbers light due to the heavy culling during the drought, we haven’t had to supplement these cows with alfalfa yet this year—a good thing. It will take two or three ‘normal’ seasons before we get our cow numbers close to a sustainable capacity again, unwilling to buy non-native cows that take at least two years to finally acclimate to this ranch and cycle regularly.
Checking cattle once a week, the Kubota has become so familiar on the Paregien Ranch that wildlife are seldom startled. With tall feed and cover, we haven’t seen many deer in the past six months. It was reassuring to see that the Blacktail buck above had survived hunting season, now in rut and somewhat oblivious to our presence. With a doe and fawn grazing acorns, he was more content to rest in the shade than leave.
Early mornings cool and talking firewood earlier in the week, we came off the hill with a load of dry Manzanita.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, Paregien Ranch, photography, weather, wildlife
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