DRY CRIK Journal

I've awakened the past few mornings with the beat and lyrics of John van Amerongen's songs in my head, replaying in my dreams. We've shared the Fisher Poets' CDs two or three times since Elko and burnt a couple for family and friends, and perhaps in the process, they've become branded in my brain. The lyrics are simple, catchy and clever, but nothing destined for recognition by academia or the main stream media in the near term. I am, of course, surprised each time to have John's voice wake me, and find it remarkable enough to let him sing-on while I go through the foggy ritual of making coffee in the dark.

I also have a poem given to me at Elko, shortly after a moving session of prose from Joel Nelson and Wally McRae, from Gary Hill, retired from California law-enforcement. The poem is one of those first-ever, cathartic milestones, written in his hotel room at the Gathering the year before. I am reminded of the early years of the Gathering when an invited poet might get up to recite a poem he wrote the night before, moved to do so by the poetry of his peers.

I want to post Gary's poem here for the above vague reasons, and offer a spot for readers to share their own poems. His unpolished piece clearly speaks with the feeling that motivates many of us to write, often lost in the editing process. I am also reminded of the replies from academics when I asked why they came to the early Gatherings: "for the inspiration."

This will be an experiment that I may delete without notice. By utilizing 'Comments' at the bottom of this post, a reader may email his poem to share here. I will edit this category from time to time and limit the poems to a reasonable number. We'll see where it goes.

THE STRAIGHT STORY

This was the first gatherin' I come to for a cowboy I ain't,
Probably because to stay on a horse I cain't.

Got bucked off once or twice,
'n decided horses were not so nice.

So riden' was not gonna work for me in the long haul,
But still in my heart I yearned to be a cowboy, standin' tall.

So I looked around for similar fun,
Ended up strappin' on a gun
Spent the next thirty years fightin' crime,
Which, when compared, is no way to spend a lifetime.

But, all in all, I now must claim,
Always thought the jobs were about the same.

No office, no desk to tie us down,
Out 'n about and ridin' around.
Watchin' over, protecting our flock,
With no regard for the time on the clock.

With no fear of the predators out there,
We danced with danger and finished each day with a thankful prayer.
By the nature of the work we were always in pickles,
Night 'n day, twenty four-seven - for a few paltry nickels.

Havin' a pard always made for a better shift,
But mostly, we worked alone, our dreams adrift.
'Cept when it came round-up weather,
We joined a crew and worked to together.

The members of the crew, all much the same,
Through the seasons good friends we all became.
Like family, like brothers (and sisters) we were,
Maybe even closer, I think, for sure.
And when we lost one of that crew to the sky above
We realized just how deep and true our love.

We chased those rustlers and wild-ass critters,
Took serious bull-dog work, not for quitters.
To gather 'em up - no longer to be free.
Then, with professional air, shipped 'em off to places they didn't wanna be.

Now I'm older and showin' a little gray,
Those thirty years I reflect on most everyday.
But after this gatherin' and hearin' the true-life poems of course -
I wish - oh God I wish - I'd learned to ride a horse!

By Gary Hill
@ Cowboy Poetry Gathering 2005

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An endless river of cars
dicing time and distance
into shrinking instants
of back-spun air,

mile and a quarter
of three lanes changing
bumper to bumper
in less than a minute

makes Daytona
look tame �
and I pray uselessly
not to drive this road again.

Elliptical duals,
more skid marks
than pavement
without potholes

only the crazy
navigate intrastate
everyday � only
the numb or desperate,

the suicidal or enslaved
spin the cylinder
and squeeze the trigger
to start and end this way,

the same route
John Cutler took
two weeks to ride
five generations back

�Visalia to Sacramento �
to camp the river banks
and pen a verse
not so long ago.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 8:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We branded a little bunch of our own calves yesterday, after gathering the pairs in a 1,000-acre field at the 2,000-foot elevation thick with Blue Oak woodland and interspersed with manzanita, Live Oak, buck brush and chemise with the pickup. This may seem like sacrilege to the “purists” out there, but this is country where they had to shoot 4-5 year-old steers they couldn't capture in the 1940s - and country where I spent as much time looking for fairly-good help on horseback as I did for cattle.

Roads, brushing, and water development has made the this part of the ranch more accessible, and the investment of time and supplement in our cows pays additional dividends where cattle have always had a substantial advantage.

We “head ‘n heel” our calves to brand, and as always, the calves seemed bigger from the ground where Chuck & I worked. Clarence branded, and Robbin and Virginia McKee vaccinated. Ropers were Ken McKee, Tony Rabb, Brent Huntington and Glenn Dooley. Good day all ‘round.

Too early and too much like spring, weather warmed to 70 degrees as we ate a great, late lunch prepared by Chuck’s wife Lesley when we came off the hill. Chance of rain tomorrow has been canceled, less chance over the weekend.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Roads at the higher elevations are beginning to dry out and passable if we’re careful.
We gathered some cows and calves to brand tomorrow, and in the process checked the gauge in Greasy to update our season totals [October through today].

Season Totals

Dry Creek: 9.35
Greasy Creek: 10.67
Paregien: 9.41

We ought to get the amount for the last two rains at the Paregien corrals in the next day or so. So far, it’s been a good rainfall year, but our grass season lasts until May, needing some regular rains through mid-April. Though it’s good to see the grass getting ahead of the cattle, we’ve got a ways to go, yet.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 4:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 23, 2006

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 9:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 23, 2006

Accustomed to the camera now,
the circling and circulating
through the bunch to frame them
in the light � to the twig
on her hip or the pebbles
at his feet, they step up �
        closer together
and seem to know to pose.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One long arm
with hydraulic muscles of the backhoe move
like a willow limb nodding in the wind �

bite after bite
at the foot of the hillside beyond the house
and into the truck to dump down below

to smooth and roll into a pad
for a horse barn and hay.
Two flat spots where there were none.

And nothing was here, twenty-five years ago,
but the slope and the game trail between the canyons
of quail and deer, bobcats, coyotes and cattle that

stopped in the breezy shade of the two oaks
in the garden hauled, a bucket at a time,
from the highwater edge of the channel.

Old mountains left behind to now hold roots
of red tomatoes and onions, green peppers
and squash, asparagus, artichokes, and herbs �

much of which we give away.
Yesterday, we tore the old shed down, saved
the bats and one by twelve boards salvaged

from the old Bequette house down the road
to build a shelter for the generator � took
three days and worked for twenty years.

Short walk to the knoll between here and the creek
where the geldings stand with heads together
in the summer swishing flies in the shadow

of a half-cave rippled into rock
as if drawn to the form of the woman in granite
extruded from this hollow ground, echoing

under horses� hooves between the pictographs
and mortar holes of acorns, leaves and rain �
where women stayed to heal one another

by the moon � where glaciers stopped
to stack and grind large boulders round,
now thick with velvet green.

With grace, our mark will hair-over �
lost and washed from this sacred place
gathering forgotten remains.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good day branding calves at the Rabb Ranch, sun in and out of the high fog. Good neighbors and friends - Tony's Red Angus calves sure looked good!

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 4:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rain revisits morning black
upon my metal roof, gentle to begin with
like Drum�s Borderlands poems.

Vast landscape at dawn
awaiting the sun to erase the stars,
to clear the mountains� silhouette

         from under a blanket
         in a young cowboy�s worn
                  reclining chair
         when I could not sleep
         on the bunkhouse porch
         of the Gray Ranch � steady
         rumble of combustible snores
         on tour
                  stacked in beds
                  inside the door

as I wondered why I was there.
Why I had no horse to saddle, no
place to be beyond the dawnlight

but an Arizona airport - where I would leave
the keys to my pickup parked in Fresno
sixty miles from my canyon home.

         ï¿½You let �em catch and brush
         your hair the right way, snug
         the latigo up and steal a ride
         just to see what they know,�
         Gary tells me the next day.
         ï¿½But you can always
         change your mind.�

There is a way the landscape chisels
characters, shapes word and thought
from the hands that echo succinctly
         off the mountains
         at the brandings
         burnt in your brain.

         More than once, my father
         would credit old Tom Homer
         with saying, �He looks �
         but he jess don�t see.�
         How the simple wordplay
                  tickled him,
                  time and again

and through their eyes the sun rises
and sets in our dreams as we listen
and wait for each day to unwind.

I continue to edit this poem online. It may sound as if I�m unduly promoting Drum Hadley�s poetry, the reading of which has triggered my trip to the Gray Ranch on a Nature Conservancy tour of the Malpai Borderlands Group several years ago. Since writing the first draft, I ran across Drum's poem "Swallows" [page 330] written from "the Gray Ranch Porch before Dawn." The sun rises slow and easy in New Mexico, unlike our side of the Sierra Nevada range with sudden, blinding light.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Light rain from dark-to-dark yesterday, making the dirt work here at the house impossible, though we’re nearly done.

Temperatures have cooled down to near freezing which will strengthen the grass, as we wait for warmer days for it grow. Cattle are scattered all over the hills. Couldn’t ask for much more!

Dry Creek: .19
Greasy Creek: .31
Paregien: ?

Beautiful sunshine this morning. The weathermen have unanimously canceled the series of storms they predicted last week, so we ought to get some calves branded Tuesday or Wednesday as the roads dry out.

I’ve been reading some more poetry from Drum Hadley’s Voice of the Borderlands, a hardcover collection of over 350 pages [click Dry Crik Picks for more info] that in its Preamble may be reminiscent of his three earlier chapbooks [see Scott Preston’s review of Between Earth and Sky in the Lost Issue of Dry Crik Review], however the bulk of the book is like listening to all the old cowboys you might have been lucky enough to have grown-up with – far and away one of the grandest experiments in vernacular poetry to date. Hadley’s sense of rhythm and space is so congruent with cowboy discourse, it becomes great reading chuck-full of wild metaphors and solid truth.

I’ve reprinted a particular poem [page 173] that’s been sticking in my head for a few days to share and to give you the flavor:

LAW ON THE BORDERLINE

One Honest Client

“Look, people don’t come to a lawyer for justice,” says Lou Baroni.
“They come because they are getting hassled or screwed,
Or they want to hassle or screw someone else.
In the twenty-three years I have practiced law,
There has been only one honest client who has come to me.
She was a little old Mexican woman.
‘Abogado, lawyer,’ she said, ‘I have come to you
Because I have a problem. Some years ago
I borrowed eight hundred dollars from a man.
Now he wants me to pay it back.
He says he will sue me if I don’t pay him.
Will you help me fight him?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘court is very expensive.
It sounds as though the simplest and most honest thing
Would be for you to simply pay the man
The eight hundred dollars you owe him.’
‘Abogado, lawyer,’ she said, ‘I certainly didn’t have to come
All the way to your office to hear advice like that.’”

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rain arrived Saturday and cleared mid-day Sunday.

Dry Creek: .69
Greasy Creek: .90
Paregien: ?

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We know how it was
without traffic
gathering pop bottles
in a rusty wagon
along the road

in the weeds
discovering clear
crystal treasures

the Flying A
brand of gas.

One opened darkly
beyond the neon blue
Burgie high in a small
window with cobwebs,

vague outline of
a few grumbling men
hidden in a cave.

The other bright beside
a stand of Marvel comic books,
inside walls of canned goods,

Sunbeam bread,
Marshall�s milk
and farm fresh eggs
in a brown paper bag.

for Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel

I never know where the muse is headed when I start to write in the morning. This one goes back-aways to an all but forgotten time.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lower Field, Greasy Creek
January 13, 2006

Robbin and I got up to Sulphur to cut some dry oak and manzanita. Calves are growing – cows and feed on the “improve,” and the bulls still home. Drug the main road up and back before it rained.

The roads are our lifeline in these foothill ranchscapes. Our objective is to get the water off the road as quickly as possible to keep it from washing, cutting and eroding. We can’t get our goosenecks everywhere, but we can drive in thirty minutes to what used to take us half-a-day to ride. Instead of packing 200 lbs. of salt on a packhorse or a mule, we can scatter 2,000 lbs. and see a lot more cattle in the same amount of time.

Little wonder we don’t make as many horses as we used to.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 3:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Helped my neighbors up the road brand calves, yesterday – not too sore this morning. Days are warm, but morning fog thick in the Valley. Weathermen are talking like we’ll get some rain tomorrow evening and Saturday, daring to quantify an inch with their forecast, and also predicting storms every two or three days for the next couple of weeks. So much for getting our calves marked before Elko…if they’re right.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alta Peak, Sequoia National Park
May 11, 2005

Robbin & I need to get up to Sulphur, where this photograph was taken, for some snow pictures of this year's Sierras.

Known as the �the elephant� to locals and residents of Three Rivers, I must have a dozen poems inspired by the snow on Alta Peak. It�s difficult not to lose and find myself in this view for an hour or two, all part of the magic of landmarks triggering memories, histories and an enriched sense of place.

Perhaps the mid-1960s when working for Bill DeCarteret as a packer out of Wolverton and Mineral King was the most idyllic time of my life. A 12-14 hour round trip, we would supply Bearpaw Meadow, an outpost for backpackers, by mule string once a week with eggs, bacon, bread, canned goods, etc. After the snow melted, we'd cross the elephant�s legs towards Buck Creek Canyon. It was not unusual for me to sleep in the saddle on the way back once the mules were lined-out for the Wolverton corrals, near Giant Forest.

Then beyond Bearpaw is Tamarack and Hamiltion Lakes and that portion of the High Sierra Trail to Kaweah Gap tunneled through granite - to get packed mules through, straight-off sheer and sharp left when you hit daylight. On the other side of the rocky notch of the Great Western Divide, a series of shallow lakes down the Big Arroyo to the Five Lakes Basin � where one day Ron Paregien and I caught some awfully big Rainbows at Lost Lake with a spinning rod, bobber, tapered leader and a dry fly. Crystal-clear water growing green near the bottom you could not see, we watched the big lunkers rise from twenty feet to hit the bobber and head back down before turning to hit the fly. Or the morning he and I shoveled snow off Blackrock Pass to get our stock and separate parties over, reminding of the thunderstorm of one my earliest cowboy poems.

Down the Big Arroyo towards the Kern River lies the Chagoopa Plateau, like riding across the surface of another planet around Sky Parlor Meadow, a magical, mystical place that was hell for hunting horses.

The Hot Springs at the Kern, Funston Meadow, more camps and friends recalled it seems I can�t forget.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday was one of “those” days. Two pickups broke down and the dump truck we’ve been using here at the house to move dirt quit at the Texaco mini-mart down the road towards Lemon Cove. Three men essentially afoot chasing parts, spending money while damn-little got accomplished.

Clarence’s pickup spent Sunday night up in Greasy where he and his wife had gone to cut some firewood, relax and barbeque with relatives. Chuck roll-started his pickup Monday morning to get to work. The backhoe/dump truck operator called about 10:00 looking for Chuck to help solve his problems, but Chuck was on the skid-steer pushing Clarence’s pickup out of Greasy and over the creek-crossing that had washed-out in the rains. In order to get a tow-truck up to Clarence’s rig, Chuck had to spend several hours clearing the boulders and loose rock that had fallen into the “bluff” road. A new starter for Chuck and fuse for Clarence, both up an running this morning, Longfellow echoes “all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”

Weather’s been nice, mid-sixties during the day, fog in the Valley. The cattle we can see are on the upswing and scattered, bulls still playing musical fields.

I, on the other hand, about half-afraid to go anywhere while Robbin chased parts for Chuck, spent most of the day answering the phone and cussing this moveable type software trying to get the “lost issue” formatted.

Space. Indentions. Mid-line spacing. Gary Snyder’s poem, that I really wanted to use because it ties so well with Udall’s speech and offers a broader view of our language and culture, was beyond the capability of the software, or perhaps my ability to use it. One poem by Errol Miller, I couldn’t use at all – fairly frustrating day altogether.

I woke-up about 11:00 last night with a solution to linking Dry Crik Review to the blog site without covering-up the recent entries with the issue. I couldn’t sleep unless I tried it and got a couple of restless hours under the blankets before Chuck and Clarence showed up for work this morning. Still editing typos, but I think it will work.

I share the above with you only to affirm that it’s not always “sweetness and light” around here. But when I visit with friends from harsher climates this time of year, I know we’ve got it pretty good.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just now beginning to dry out. Clearing the channel and removing all watergap fencing for miles, Dry Creek peaked on January 2nd @ 2,200 cfs at about 10:00 p.m. Indicative of how dry we’ve been, despite last season’s above normal rainfall, runoff was minimum as the rain came slow. Penetration where we moved dirt yesterday to accommodate a real office was only 6”.

Like a spring day here with a 68 degree high we let the woodstove go out, yesterday evening the frogs began their chorusing as the foothills seem to close-in around us like bedcovers pulled-up around our ears. Unusual weather, to say the least, for this time of year, but my only clue to normal, after a lifetime, is the average of a lot of data that seldom influences how we deal with current conditions.

The neighbors with calves close to the asphalt are starting to claim dates to brand, typically claiming weekends first in order to enlist more help, as a lot of them have real jobs in town. Our calves are well-off the road and we need to get a couple of bunches done before Robbin & I leave for Elko – smaller bunches requiring less help mid-week.

Just finishing the typesetting of the “Lost Issue of Dry Crik Review” begun last week during the “nasty” weather with the hope we’ll be able to include a link through this blog site. Though the issue has been in a dog-eared file folder for over ten years, the material rings solid to me, especially the insightful reviews by Scott Preston that are also a decade old. Once we overcome a couple of technological obstacles, this issue may finally see light.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

or
MAKING FRIENDS
DOWN AT THE MITIGATION SITE

After forty-five years of storm, collected silt and
sediment, they�ve raised the dam twenty-one feet
to flood volunteer willows, alders and cottonwoods
rooted down to minimum pool
that now require mitigation:

an orchard
along the road
along the creek �

tangled rows of sycamores,
blackberries, twiggy oaks, mulefat
and much more jungle beneath
the canopies
of a half-dozen trees
centuries old.

when they�re not busy
making money in Montana,

resting-up in their white two-storey hives
on pallets stacked alongside new hogwire
stretched so-so � damn sure not tight-enough
to keep bees home when December warms
after an inch of rain to seventy-three degrees.
They�re thinking spring and out-looking for work.

Headquarters � the powers that ultimately
persuade � called about the bees, how
their buzzing bothers the government�s gardeners
planting even more trees. Could I move
the hives to keep these docile souls
out of their trucks? I suggest they wait
for colder days or that they might try
rolling their windows up.

For the record, Gabe�s son-in-law moved the bees up the road a couple of nights later, but as warm as it�s been, I suspect they all didn�t make the trip. Now instead of looking for work, they�re probably looking for a place to live. Baxter could get more rhyming-mileage out of this renewable wealth of material, like the electric fence they thought they finally had �up and working�, but failed to notice that there were no longer any cattle on the other side of it. The beat goes on and we try to get along.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dry Creek
January 2, 2006

Pretty good gullywasher with 4.15" of slow, steady rain measured for the past thirty-six hours, bringing our New Year total here on Dry Creek to 5.39", a little more than a third of our seasonal average rainfall. A major mindset reversal as we are no longer worried about stockwater, canyons running and stock ponds full or filling. No storms predicted for the next week, but dense fog in the Valley. Typically, we're above the fog here and some sunshine now will really help the grass. Unless faced with some unusually cold weather, the rain ought to get us over the hump and into warming weather by the end of January when we could use a little moisture.

36-hour Totals:

Dry Creek: 5.39"
Greasy Creek: 5.90"
Paregien: 5.36"

It will be a couple of days before the roads dry out to check the accumulated totals either side of Dry Creek, but we've got plenty of rain for awhile, as good a Christmas present as we could want.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rang-in the New Year with 1.24" rain at daylight.

Greasy Creek: ?
Paregien: ?

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)