Awakened slowly,
drinking promises of rain
with people on time.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged Drought, Dry Creek, haiku, photographs, poetry, rain, red sky, weekly-photo-challenge
She could have stayed
longer, spent the night
pelting the roof,
roaring like a river
over boulders, flashing
foothill silhouettes
to cracks of thunder
like in the old days.
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Easter on Dry Creek is normally green and verdant with skiffs of popcorn flowers and patches of poppies on the hillsides. A month ago, I hoped for a long spring and time to photograph this year’s wildflowers with an eye for their expression as life forms, the evolved complexities of each species’ pollination structure, background lines and colors, etc., etc., but Robbin and I have spent the last three days preparing and planting our summer garden instead. C’est la vie!
wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/blur/
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Bird's Eye Gilia, garden, Macro Monday, weekly-photo-challenge, wildflowers
I never see her leave
the loose nest of twigs
behind the cactus spines—
long tail feathers up,
eye to the outside perched
a week or more
near the water trough
while he patrols barn
and pasture, garden, yard.
The car’s shiny wheels
spend the night in the shop—
polished aluminum spokes
reflecting distortions
between each beak attack
gone from their spot
and he is confused and lost
without purpose,
without a job at dawn
searching in circles
for the foe
who drew no blood.
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Dawn’s soft light steaming,
rain’s last embrace still clinging,
love spent overnight.
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged dawn, Drought, Dry Creek, rain, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
We calve in the fall and brand in the spring. As newborns go, this calf is fresh, only minutes old and yet to stand and nurse. Robbin and I are off this morning to help our neighbors, Kenny and Virginia McKee, brand the last of their calves.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/fresh-2/
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged branding, Calves, cows, photographs, weekly-photo-challenge
Leftover cedar
logs from the house
twenty-five years ago
paid for
frame a loamy mix
of decomposing granite and clay
with horse manure
stirred and piled
fine as sand
three years fluffed
with the skid steer
and fill what could be
a feeder along the fence—
a sixty-foot trough
for bare root raspberries
blackberries
border of red onions
come summer
and it not yet spring.
Like finches building nests
we enlarge the garden
in two half-days,
tend to instincts
warm air brings
and flesh demands
like plowing fingers
in fresh-worked dirt.
We lift another glass
and see colored fruit
years from here
paid-for.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged birds, blackberry, Dry Creek, garden, photographs, poetry, raspberry, red onions, weather, weekly-photo-challenge
Early yet in an early spring,
growing patches, orange-gold,
claim open slopes like flames,
Fiddleneck between gray skeletons
of Blue Oaks pushing bud,
feathery translucent leaves
where the gods walk ridges,
wave hands to paint,
adding color to hillside green
we’ve not seen tall in years.
Out of dust and naked dirt,
new mosaics, lush with moments,
openings for everything put off
in drouth—real work we absorb,
take our sweet time to recognize.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2015, Ranch Journal
Tagged Blue Oak, Drought, Dry Creek, photographs, poetry, real work, time, weather, weekly-photo-challenge, wildflowers
Posted in Haiku 2015, Photographs, Poems 2015
Tagged 2015 Wagyu Calf Branding, branding, Dry Creek, Fire, garden, grapefruit, haiku, Naranja, oranges, photographs, poetry, Pork loins, weekly-photo-challenge