Red-tailed Hawk
Lower Field, Greasy Creek
October 23, 2006
Click here to return to the homepage of Western Folklife Center
Click here to return to the homepage of Western Folklife Center
« September 2006 | Main | November 2006 »
Lower Field, Greasy Creek
October 23, 2006
TRANSPARENCY
Only a politician could
borrow a beaver lid
for a photograph
to receive an award
in a roomful of cattlemen,
look good and grin
before he retires
to the California coast.
It’s a lifelong art
to ignore the details,
to wring your hands
with pensive deliberation:
squeezing phrases
to stay in office –
to keep focused and believe
someone else will
implement your indecision.
But only the best
get showers of applause
before leaving the scene
of the accident.
OBFUSCATION
The old saw
about giving-up
your right to complain
if you don’t vote
is a rusty and leaky
bucket nowadays
without a vessel
impermeable to
the legalese
of each initiative
or without a majority
with the eye
to make the sort
intelligently.
Designed to tax
both life and paycheck
and make you believe
you like it best
peppered with new acronyms
and multi-syllabic terms
slipping from the tip
of your own tongue,
it’s viable choice
to conserve your energy
for critical protest –
for the alliterative bitch
and disheartened groan
we cultivate
into political slogans
that so often come to mean
even less.
MAKE LOVE NOT WAR
When were young enough
to really practice
the slogans we chanted
before packing an M-16
to Viet Nam,
living was intense
if not insane
and irresponsible.
So much wiser now,
we hire our fighting done
drawing dividends
from all the corporate powers
that keep wood on the fire.
On the short-end of our strings,
it’s OK now
to cut the trees down
to remain warm and cozy
when we can leave the shortfall
to technology
to find an answer
that better fits our nature.
SOLAR
Harnessing
a perpetual motion machine
that would work in the vacuum
of an uncluttered outer-space
might offset the friction
of our consumption.
Somewhat like the explosion
in that first light of Genesis
before the black cloak
of darkness was perforated
by the endless reflection
of all the balls
of fiery energy
borne twinkling,
ever-twinkling
and Eveready
to solve our problems.
Afraid of the dark,
we have turned our heads away
ever since the quince
juice glistened upon Eve’s
naked breasts –
so much more profitable
to allocate moonlight
for baser pleasures
after a hard day’s work
of spending resources
like water –
or even dirt.
Sulfur
October 17, 2006
The Brindle Cow posing with her second newborn calf on this weblog signals a cycle of seasons for “our perspectives from the ranch.” Recognizable, she is a reminder from where our cattle have come over a period of forty years: Hereford background influenced by Beefmaster. No beauty queen, she remains in the cowherd because of her fertility and her ability to raise a calf.
Likewise, we hope to continue to produce new and insightful perspectives. Thus far it has been fun and, at times, addictive to share what we do with you. Much like the perfection we never achieve on the ranch, our journal has become snapshots of what we see and think in this ever-changing business as we attempt to maximize our harvest of grass over the longer term. Primarily dictated by weather and terrain, it must be remembered that ours is not the only way of doing things, as most of the rest of the West calves in the spring.
Because Robbin and I believe in the lasting values inherent to the ranching culture, survival skills on every level, we hope that we might enhance a public and contemporary understanding of the community at-large. Too boring, I fear, for box office attractions, the culture clings to its word and individual dependability, to hard work and repetitive responsibility, and most often with the deed to the ranch at risk. It can be a commitment that becomes one’s whole life, almost like religion.
We begin again and wait for rain.
Date Dry Creek Greasy Creek Paregien Corrals
10/1 0.12 0.14 0.14
10/5 0.05 0.07 0.03
11/14 0.18 0.28 0.24
12/10 1.32 rain rain
12/11 0.05 1.27 1.17
12/17 0.07 0.22 0.11
12/22 0.58 0.67 rain
12/27 0.91 0.98 1.45
1/4 0.29 0.50 0.41
1/28 0.60 0.33 0.44
2/11 1.25 rain rain
2/12 0.06 rain rain
2/19 0.07 rain 1.55
2/23 0.70 rain rain
2/24 0.10 rain rain
2/27 0.58 rain rain
2/28 0.23 3.18 1.33
3/20 1.97 rain rain
3/21 0.03 1.16 2.20
3/27 0.55 0.67 0.54
4/11 0.02 0.02 0.02
4/15 0.41 rain rain
4/22 0.79 1.07 1.27
Total 10.93 10.56 10.90
For an explanation of the location of the above gauges, see the post for December 26, 2005. More often than not, weather and road conditions delay gathering information in Greasy and on the Paregien Ranch.
The outbreaks have sparked demands to create a new federal agency in charge of food safety. Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both New York Democrats, are sponsoring legislation authored by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., to create the unified Food Safety Agency.
"This recent outbreak must be a wake-up call to get our food safety house in order, because right now it's in pure disarray," Schumer said at his Manhattan office. "We need to have one agency take charge to ensure the next outbreak isn't far worse." - CNN.com
Once popular cartoon characters, Popeye and Wimpy are virtually unemployed.
Farm workers in the Salinas Valley have been laid off as farmers plow fields of spinach under. As this week’s E.coli “suspects,” hamburger and lettuce, drive “food-fear” into the political arena, one can be sure of legislation that will propose to “take charge” of agriculture. Excuse my skepticism, but the distance between Manhattan and the dirt we raise our food from seems more than geographic.
This is, of course, the crux of It – whether cattle or crops, independence or serfdom, the necessity for more control over producers’ lives is driven mostly by fear and convenience. Culturally, we resist control and live in places a long ways from Manhattan for a number of good reasons, but in reality, our space is getting smaller as we plant houses, mine and develop ground that once produced food. That foreign countries claim more shelf space at the supermarket seems consistent with the ongoing economic colonization of the planet, however contrary it may be to the welfare and good sense of US citizens. Early congressional response to these latest E.coli possibilities runs parallel with the NAIS as agriculture may become the next political football.
But promoting fear is like crying “wolf": poor platform for professional politicians.
Though the predicted moisture only amounted to drops, the roof got finished. When shortly thereafter my Dry Creek-raised, 70++ year-old accountant admonished me for working rooftop at fifty, I had to explain: that I was actually closer to sixty and that only a few can afford the workman’s comp to hire someone else to do a roofing job.
Robbin and I have had to split up: she’s maintaining the house, activity that also currently includes staining and sealing everything wood while I feed cattle mornings, hopefully to get back in time to put in a half-day with my own bucket and brush. At it for a week or so, we should be halfway done by Sunday.
October 4, 2006
It appeared that a bear had grabbed one of the first-calf heifer calves in the Lower Field earlier in the week. Back still swollen, it seems better today. Meanwhile a mile up-canyon, an old female lion with cubs has killed several of the neighbor’s calves – just next door, we’re missing one.
Nevertheless, the weather change has been delightful. Gradual warming predicted with 90 degrees slated for week after next – a long ways off this time of year, but we think we’re making progress.
The first day of October brought intermittent showers, enough to settle the dust on our main feeding roads, though not enough to start the grass. We’ve been feeding since August, concentrating on our first calf heifers, 75% of which have calved in the first six weeks; of the older cows, about 50% have calved in the first thirty days. We’re quite pleased, however hesitant to take too much credit for our good fortune.
Monday, feeding in a cloud on Top and in Sulfur limited visibility to about 30 yards.
Nursery in Sulfur
Ocotber 2, 2006
The welcome change in the weather has us scrambling to stain and seal the house and deck as well as finishing the installation of the roof on our new office as the weather prognosticators generally agree on varying degrees of moisture later today.
Dry Creek: .12 inches
Greasy Creek: .14 inches
September 19, 2006
The opinions expressed in the Western Folklife Center's Deep West online journals are those of the online journal participants and not the Western Folklife Center. The Western Folklife Center does not moderate these journals and as such does not guarantee the veracity, reliability or completeness of any information provided in the journals or in any hyperlink appearing within them.