Tag Archives: weather

AT DAWN

Posted on September 15, 2014 by | 5 comments

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The earth is hard and dry—
but when it comes to dreams
we look to the sky.

 

 

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FIRST

Posted on September 14, 2014 by | 2 comments
December 28, 2013

December 28, 2013

 

Shedding a few leaves early, the sycamores
have begun to turn, quit taking water,
teasing me with peeks of more alabaster flesh

at a distance—first moves before the sway
of winter’s naked dance along the creek—
sandy cobbles like rafts of human skulls now.

On my morning circle of first-calf mothers,
I check the spots where water rises first
behind the granite dikes beneath damp sand

and short-cropped green as if I might
hurry time, escape into the future cool and wet
and wait like a rabbit for tortoise to catch up.

 

 

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THE OLD SAW

Posted on September 13, 2014 by | 5 comments

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We are not sure anymore,
the sound and smell of it lost
to matters at hand without it,

so busy and mindful
of filling the void
best we can. The old saw

about not missing water
until the well goes dry
doesn’t cut the dust

settling nightly in my lungs,
in the corners of my eyes
and ears. I am not sure

of anything anymore
except that we would
welcome a change.

 

 

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal

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FOREPLAY

Posted on September 8, 2014 by | 4 comments

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Looking out beneath black clouds at dawn
from a daze, it smells like rain too early
to do much good, yet I am cheery—

old friends returned, dark remnants
of a Mexican hurricane, precursors
perhaps to storms waiting in the wings

rehearsing lines, emphasizing pauses
and diction between thunder and lightening—
old flesh revived beneath a blanket.

 

 

WPC(2) — “Adventure”

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Posted in Photographs, Poems 2014, Ranch Journal

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Resilience

Posted on September 4, 2014 by | 2 comments

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The Sycamore Alluvial Woodland (Platanus racemosa) on Dry Creek is one of 17 stands over 10 acres remaining in the world and the largest in the Sierra Nevada ecoregion despite the downstream impacts due to gravel mining. Other impacts from reservoirs, recreation and stream channelization have substantially reduced the population of this plant community statewide. Despite a century of grazing and the current drought, new growth from the remains of an old sycamore stump in this photo demonstrates the amazing resilience of this species. Photo: August 31, 2014

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AUGUST 2014

Posted on August 28, 2014 by | 3 comments

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Stepping back from our routines of irrigating, checking stockwater and increased feeding, August has been a delightful month, cooler overall than average. It feels like an early fall. Our cows are bred to start calving next month, and more than ever we’re excited to get on with the next phase of this business, another beginning of a new cycle as we approach our rainy season, described by an early California historian as that time when it might rain.

Two years of drought has forced us to reduce our cowherd by 40%, leaving less cows to supplement with hay, less four-wheel drive excursions into our upper country with expensive alfalfa. As a result, we have reduced the average age of our cows, focusing on the maternal traits of our most recent genetics as the core of our herd. We’re excited to get started and see the calves.

As always, we head into calving blind, not knowing what circumstances the weather will create, and not even knowing whether our reduced calf crop will generate enough to cover our future expenses—a true gamble, daily investing ourselves and all we have for an unknown payday—not exactly what I was taught in business school!

But it’s what we do, it seems, year in and year out, trying to make ranch improvements as we go just to make life easier as we get older. We’re ready for the calves and ready for some October rain to put this drought behind us.

 

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RECENT HISTORY

Posted on August 27, 2014 by | 3 comments

At the gate the dust is deep.
A feral hog at dawn returning
to his lair along the creek

atop a raccoon aiming
for the water trough, powder
soft between their toes

atop several head of cows
upon my own boot track
fading with yesterday’s breeze.

The time is now
to think about
the sign we leave.

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Posted in Poems 2014

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IN SIGHT

Posted on August 26, 2014 by | 1 comment

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The day unfolds in the black:

another circle of hay and water,
cows and bulls, a dusty track
on worn terrain now dreaming

on a cool, downcanyon draft
of bluster and damp—of drinking
dark clouds until the dust is mud.

Out of the shadows, the wild steps
lightly, all sharing the same dream
rising from the dry, dry earth.

 

 

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EVENING

Posted on August 16, 2014 by | 2 comments

First-calf heifers, tired from the drive
over hill and dale across the creek
to the corrals, sorted and fly sprayed

before their new home plied with alfalfa,
maternity wards bare as human baby’s derrière
in the flats, but with hair yet on the hillsides—

and a few old girls to show them how-in-hell
to get there. Out from under sycamores,
they work the shadow of the ridge in bunches,

stop and look, a few paces at a time,
inspecting distances, not knowing yet
how far they’ll have to go to stay here.

 

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Posted in Poems 2014

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Ides of August

Posted on August 15, 2014 by | 2 comments

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These girls are two weeks away from calving as we begin a new season with little feed and less water, but we’re optimistic nonetheless, looking forward to a little rain and green grass.

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