Tag Archives: weather

GRASS

 

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Within a week of late October rains, a forest
of green blades twisting, chasing warm
golden light between canyon horizons,

reaching while we sleep to a waxing moon
sailing south across black starlit seas—
a germination thick as hair on a dog’s back.

Hard clay turned soft underfoot, under cloven
hooves, out of the bleached and brittle rubble
of last year’s feed, a spreading miracle of green

as the earth stirs with another birth of grass.
And we are tied to it, mentally shackled
and physically restrained to work within her

moody generosity, daring not with word
or thought to piss her off—we have our gods
and goddesses we adore, stealing glimpses

every chance we get outside to pause
and praise them. All our totems, the bird
and animal people of the Yokuts know

our names, know our habits, show us the way
this canyon was designed to support life,
here and beyond us, with a crop of grass.

 

 

  Weekly Photo Challenge: “Chaos”

 

Ranch Journal: November 1, 2016

 

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A dark day after over an inch of rain, Terri and Lee feed the replacement heifers before the Wagyu bulls arrive next month. Already dated, this photograph doesn’t show the green that has spread across the damp ground in the past three days. Temperatures forecast for the next ten days are in the mid-to-high-70s—perfect growing weather for our native grasses. Already, our first-calf heifers are leaving our flatter feeding grounds for the hillsides in search of green grass tall enough to bite, steep ground softer now to climb and graze a little dry feed with the new.

Shorter days stuck in the low-50s, chilly mornings linger as both man and beast seem slower to get started, much of the pressure off after four days of rain and a thick germination of seed. Robbin and I are already talking firewood after we check the cows and calves on the Paregien Ranch, a Kubota load to augment the leftovers of last year’s stack, kept short to discourage rattlesnakes around the house. We’re ready, I think, to face whatever weather we get this winter, hoping always for well-timed rains.

 

Welcome Rain

 

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A delightful four days of rain, the ground accumulating nearly an inch and a half of warm moisture here on Dry Creek, enough to start the grass and get our season under way. We fill our lungs, exhale and sigh, satisfied. Despite the dry winter forecast from multiple sources, we trust the excess old feed will help hold the moisture on the hillsides between rains, adding cover for the new grass to grow within.

CONTENT WITH CHANCE

 

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Desk light inside, tree frogs hang on the screen door
stroked by the gentle damp breathing of a downcanyon
breeze, deep dark mouth clear to the mountain pines.

No stars, all black, we wait—anticipate cloudy daylight
together, a red sky dawn and rain, slow at first
approaching, its tiny footsteps soft upon dry leaves.

No new amazement, this cleansing of dust, this erasing
memories and tracks that leaves the ground fresh,
that may swell the seed to burst into green cotyledons,

open-handed to receive sky blessings, small miracles-
in-waiting—a chance, we dream. Wishing is not praying
yet among the bone-dry years, broken skeletons

of old oak trees flailing across hillsides in herds
just before Halloween, Buckeyes drip with bloody
leaves while goblins claim what we cannot see.

 

Welcome Back, Lee

 

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Down from the Cedar Grove Pack Station, we’re glad to have Lee Loverin back on the ranch. To have her spell my knees and back bucking bales and feeding hay is a godsend. Light since August, we’ve gradually increased the amount of hay to our first-calf heifers to help them raise month-old calves with growing appetites, and to our replacement heifers to insure they are in shape and cycling when the Wagyu bulls arrive in December. Trying to stay ahead of the game, our philosophy has always been that it’s cheaper to keep the weight on cattle than it is to put it back on after they get thin.

The huge Pacific storm that targeted the Northwest left only a trace of moisture here, not quite enough to even settle the dust. Nothing much in the extended forecast, meanwhile we’ll be feeding hay to our younger girls.

 

EVENING RAINBOW

 

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Into thirsty flesh,
we inhale the smell of rain
upon dry grasses.

 

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge 2: ‘local’

 

HALLELUJAH

 

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Out of the southwest, wind
down the dry draw damp—
dust devils dance across
ground grown bare by cows

meeting near the water trough
with the run and buck of calves
finding all four legs to stir
hope for nothing certain:

this first chance of rain.
Time may seem to fly
now that we are older,
or plodding slower shade

to shade with less idleness
to fill with complaint—summer
long and hot, but shorter than
our partnership with drought.

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: ‘local’

 

TO LIVE FOR

 

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Late spring rains last into October,
empty-headed wild oats bow
to a southwest wind suggesting change

from broiling days—maybe rain.
Snakes crawl out from under shade,
backs to the sun, warm their bellies

in fine trail dust. Blue Oaks shed
large dark acorns glinting
in dry leaves like burnished gems

and we are rich, breathe deep relief
as fresh calves find steady legs
to run without direction, learn to stop.

We gladly give all up to chance
and certain change believing
this is the time we live for.

 

BRUSH STROKES

 

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Summer breezes comb
late spring rains of golden hair,
fine-stemmed wild oats ripened

in the rocks with a trace of lichen
rouge for looks—our sexy
centerfold to hang and frame

in the back of our minds,
our cluttered caves of thought,
to remember her by.

 

REFRESHED RELIEF

 

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All this time, decades of learning and relearning
reapplied to new devices designed to save time—
to bank, spend or squander somewhere in the future

with no guarantees made selfish sense, a singular
detachment from the congested urgencies swirling
like autumn’s colored leaves in a quest of rest

and peace. How he craved the storm’s building
energies, the dark electricity thundering rain
to erase time’s tracks, that might freeze the moment

into days and weeks. Old flesh come alive
with the prospect of starting over again, cotyledons
of grass for cows and calves—a refreshed relief.