DRY CRIK Journal

Last weekend’s storm never materialized despite its unanimous prediction from local weathermen, NOAA and The Weather Channel. This dry pattern at the beginning of our generally scant rainy season seems to parallel last year, thus far. Temperatures have dropped to freezing at night, mid-to-high 50s during the day. No rain in sight.

The Nevada steers are learning their new home around Lake Kaweah. Not afraid to climb or sleep on a steep hillside, they’re scattering out into ample dry feed. Quick to claim their own flake of hay, our calves are growing and pulling some of the younger cows down. As these cows stay in the same field or mountain pasture year ‘round, their old feed is getting short and they require more hay to stay in shape to raise a calf and breed back.

We put the bulls out to the cows Monday and Tuesday. With 75% of the hay we bought last summer already fed, it’s essential we keep it coming now until the grass comes. Any hopes I may have harbored of carrying some alfalfa over into next year have been forgotten. If we do get rain at this stage, the grass will be slow to grow, though generally strong.

An unnamed metaphor at the moment, the barn shrinks daily as our ranch work primarily consists of feeding. Somewhat up against it, we try to ignore the tightness and fatigue we all feel, feign a good face, grin and carry on. If we don’t get a rain in the next couple of weeks, that may change.

All part of the business of grazing and raising livestock, our dependence on rain is but one of the friction points we’ll face this grass season. Amazingly resilient, our grasses have evolved to endure unpredictable weather patterns. Likewise building faith and/or character over time, this unique dependence on rain has much to do with who we are.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 6:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mexican Sage
November 11, 2006

High clouds and fog, local weathermen have finally agreed to a good chance of rain on Saturday through Monday. If correct, it’ll be our first real storm of the season. Even with more empty space than hay stacked in our barns, we have much to be thankful for. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 6:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Leaving Dry Creek

Belle Point

The Nevada steers travel very well, but once across the Flat and into Belle Point, their heads went down. With a mile to go to get to water, it didn’t make much sense to them to leave last season’s dry feed.

To Water
November 20, 2006

Up over the ridge and down "the elevator" to Lake Kaweah. At minimum pool this time of year, there's quite a bit of well-cured Bermuda grass below the lake's highwater mark.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

                      When people are dead and peaceless
                      they hate life, they only like carrion.
                              - D. H. Lawrence, (“Dead People”)

The new calf, drawn with the others to me
from where he sucked and his mother laid him down,
bawls from the maze of razor sharp gooseberries
like concertina wire sprung in neat circles.

As the sun inches below us, his fresh black coat glints
with each urgent breath to the dozen cows and calves
at peace around me – my trusting congregation
waiting for a sign that I may deliver something.

Poor dumb souls with eyes so deep and sentient,
they read my movements, my pride, my love –
for I come with nothing else but a gun today. Up
in the rocks his mother stands and answers sternly.

I have been hunting quail – first time in twenty years –
and not quick enough to hurt the coveys much.
Afoot, I am even with uneven ground – feel the details
missed a horseback – share their eyes and wear

the landscape like a home. Between rockpiles, a severed
femur freshly stripped to the hoof. Deep in the hollow
of a live oak, white cage of bone disrobed – I know
the cow whose fevered eyes hid her here – remember

last week’s bear tracks in the road dust,
the coyote slipping manzanita into thin air.
In this far place, there is no room for guilt
or blame, to hate the way some people do.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 7:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Top
November 17, 2006

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our 70% chance of rain on Saturday slid north as more moisture for the Northwest. However, arriving with two more truckloads of Nevada steers Monday night, an unpredicted swirl of clouds left amounts ranging from .14 to a quarter of an inch along Dry Creek. Still busy feeding our cows and calves, the surprise showers may have been enough to start the grass in places – dust settled for the moment.

Live cattle prices have slid nearly 20% as the price of a short corn crop has increased to supply the growing demand from ethanol plants. Naturally, commodity speculators have exacerbated both extremes, but we trust that the price of both commodities will even out in the near term – one example of the variables of the market and politics that are beyond our control. For those that normally sell their calves going into winter, it’s had to be an awfully tough hit.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 5:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two truckloads of Nevada steers arrived last night, and though forecasts vary widely, NOAA has us slated for 70% chance of showers today of about a tenth of an inch in the Valley. We hope, of course, to get more in the foothills to start the grass as the clouds stack up. For the past three days, the wide discrepancy among dueling local weathermen keeps us optimistic. At the very least, we ought to get the dust settled. Temperatures have cooled into the low 40s at night and high 60s during the day. Manzanita and oak are cut and stacked, but too dry yet to chance a fire in the woodstove.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 6:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With my step I stir the dust
of ten thousand head
that have crossed here –
cattle, elk and deer.

And on the knoll above the creek,
the charcoal of a million fires
padded finely into dirt
that flows like water

to rise above the heavy feet
of the present passing –
to hang and drift
up and down the canyon,

mixing tenses with each breath
ingested through my veins –
alive again in this place
in my mind. Loose seeds

of thought dislodged
from beneath my feet
waiting to germinate,
waiting for a rain.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 6:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

                Let the boys want pleasure, and men
                Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
                And the servile to serve a Leader, and the dupes to be duped.
                Yours is not theirs.
                           - Robinson Jeffers, (“Be Angry at the Sun”)

Let them spend their way to Washington –
to alabaster banquets of buttered lobster
garnished with garlic and parsley, let them

sip ambrosial nectar like hummingbirds
from golden thimbles with their initials
at every convocation of re-elected intellect

they might muster – let them play
like deities at the reflection pool
braiding one another’s hair between affairs

with mortals, let them trade half-truths
for half-deception, half-a-heart
for half an ego’s bounty, let them parade,

pontificate and claim the stage
of Mt. Olympus – but let them believe
that threads are invisible, that we cannot see

the web that moves the limbs and lips
of politics, that we cannot follow
and eventually connect them.

BARNYARD

                We are at war
                with Mexico – to
                please her fancy –
                        -William Carlos Williams, (“Another Old Woman”)

It’s hard on the heart
to keep the blood up –

                flexing like Banties
                in the barnyard –

yet she enlists us
to crow and wake the troops
from the roost of trees.

Battles brief,
the old bulls bluff
or claim a distant oak –
they walk to work
as the young ones run
one after another.

Is it fair to question
the gray hairs who
manage her affairs,
has she grown senile?
What favors left
has she to offer
but the insatiable
nightmare?

Perhaps she has hooked us
to bigger fish
than we can land.

Williams’ poem, as follows, triggered my take-off on a familiar theme, yet I tried to maintain the sense of native patriotism common to both Williams and Jeffers. - J

ANOTHER OLD WOMAN

If I could keep her
here, near me
I’d fill her mind
with my thoughts

She would get
their complexion
and live again. But
I could not live

along with her
she would drain me
as sand drains
water. Visions pos-

sess her. Dreams
unblooded walk
her mind. Her
mind does not faint.

Throngs visit her:
We are at war
with Mexico – to
please her fancy –

A cavalry column
is deploying
over lifeless terrain
to impress us!

She describes it
her face bemused –
alert to details. They
ride without saddles

tho’ she is ig-
norant of the word
“bareback,” but knows
accurately that I

am not her son, now,
but a stranger
listening. She
breaks off, her looks

intent, bent
inward, with a curious
glint to her eyes.
They say that

when the fish comes!
(gesture of getting
a strike) it
is a great joy!

                        - William Carlos Williams

Posted by Robbin at 4:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)