DRY CRIK Journal

she waves and says
somewhere south
of the Chesapeake –

no hurricane, thunderstorm nor
tornadic conditions on the colored map
beneath her palm – just plain old rain.

No drizzling mist nor frolicky burst
that rainbows spring from, but old,
re-circulated passion from Noah’s flood –

steady, solid stuff I picture
as a dark gray blur of cats & dogs
good sense observes from a shed,

as I wait for a peek at the Pacific
jet stream, for any shade of green
along the eastern San Joaquin –

willing to do penance, even
something religious or barbaric
for a generic nuisance rain

to hold these leaves of grass
alive within me – Oh, but
how I’d take it plain!

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Revisiting the proposed Animal ID, Robbin suggests that the program might be more palatable for producers that if in return for all the tagging and record keeping, we would be informed as to how our beef carcasses graded. Such information would be invaluable when it comes to the retention of cows and the selection of bulls – information beneficial, hopefully, to the entire industry – perhaps even an edge as we compete in a world beef market.

Failure of proponents to mention or offer this obvious and potential benefit for producers, feeders, packers, consumers and exporters implies that something else is driving this train, that political tunnel vision has, once again, missed the hands-on application of this program.

I believe the driving wheel is FEAR. Congress has been thoroughly briefed on our vulnerability to terrorist attacks, and the ID program would theoretically make isolating and quarantining segments of the industry quicker and easier. I don’t know how to quantify and graph FEAR, but in the bigger picture, I’m confident that we’re at an all-time high in this country, surpassing Nikita Khrushchev’s table-pounding episode in the 60s when backyard bomb shelters were in vogue.

Herders and horsemen know how fear works, how it centers and builds and how difficult it is to overcome. Used only as a last resort, most work towards a foundation of trust instead. Employing the metaphor of a herd of citizens, little wonder that our political cowboys have the populace so wild-eyed today. Afraid of our food and water, one might consider that we’re being baited into a new corral.

O!
How vain and vile a passion is this fear!
What base uncomely things it makes men do.
         - Ben Johnson, 1603 (“Sejanus His Fall”)

Dry Creek Sunset
December 28, 2006

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 6:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

They say before a rain
        that tarantulas
move away from the creek –
or towards it before a dry spell.

Either way, they seem to know
        the shortest course
        across the blacktop
that interrupts their forest
of thick, brittle grasses.

Never lost upon the hard,
gray plain of oil and aggregate,
        they do not yield
        to the flow of traffic,
neither sidetracked nor distracted
by the churning current
of rubber-tired turbulence.

On the cusp of weather changes,
the asphalt crawls with spiders.
At the last minute, I swerve
to avoid their certain
        octo-ambulation
– hairy, high-stepping appendages
        inspired by something
        worth risking death.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 4:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Long-haired horses watch the house
exhale smoke that spills off eaves –
taste oak and manzanita, listening
for the screen door’s slap awake.

Gentle nickers with each step closer,
they fidget and angle for the first flake
of alfalfa to shatter in their feeder,
while the bay horse waits with hoof at rest

on the bottom rung of his own gate.
At twenty-six, he knows my walk
has slowed, no less impatient
than I made him. Looking back

from the barn, the house breathes.
Through its eyes I can see you moving –
feel all the years compressed into one
sure moment of belonging here.

Feeding with Grandpa

December 28th: Despite the .9" of rain, it was imperative that we "feed the cattle." I trust readers will indulge me as I indulged my grandson.

Photos by Jessica Dofflemyer

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 5:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sycamore in Live Oaks
Section 17

Not near the brilliance of Quakies elsewhere in the fall, our early freeze and lack of stormy weather has kept leaves on the sycamores.

High on the Hillside
Section 17

Finding enough green to bite on a west-facing slope, the heifers and their first calves are getting up and out.

Nevada Steers
Belle Point

Likewise, the Nevada steers are unanimously working the hillsides, finding more green in the dry feed than can be seen in this picture. Even through their winter clothes, one can tell they’ve managed to keep full on the dry.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Snow down Sulfur Ridge to about 2,500 feet towards Dry Creek where we measured .07 rain. A distinct tint of green is showing through the old feed, cattle high on the hillsides.

Sunset North, Dry Creek
December 17, 2006

Robbin and I are making special Christmas preparations for my eldest daughter and three year-old grandson flying in from Kauai later this week. We spent yesterday trimming a store-bought tree and stringing lights around the outside of the house. In the blackness of this canyon, our simple place is lit-up like a Nevada casino.

Working around yesterday’s slow drizzle, I managed to salvage six “Made in China” strings from years past, methodically interchanging the primitive and delicate bulbs from a well-weathered seventh string, crushing a fair percentage of them between my fingers in the process. Generally immune to Christmas consumerism, I was quite pleased, however, with my diligent effort – one that Robbin noted might have saved ten or fifteen bucks with my five hours invested.

She’s right, of course, but I lay it on the culture – which is what this weblog is supposed to be about. At only two or three bucks an hour, the value of my satisfaction makes all the difference. Like Robbin’s small jars of pomegranate jelly, an incalculable effort with others in mind, we try to embrace the Spirit of Christmas, or so I rationalize. We’ve been running at a pretty fair clip since April, truly busier than we’d like to be. With the rain, we can slow down and relax a little. Happy Holidays to all!

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I was younger, I could fly
from the peak of the old barn
and land in granddad’s garden tilled
with the vineyard disk and tractor,

but on the ground the world grows up
like weeds around us – seasons circle
until we can’t see out. I still fly
in my dreams, soaring over orchards

to light in exotic spaces to expire
valiantly as I wake to unbuckled knees –
backbone grinding as I make coffee
in the dark. I still fly to places

in my mind. Yesterday, hauling hay
up canyon, I saw Wilma in the rest home,
infirmed and impatient with her frailty –
heard my promise of three springs ago

for one last drive up the Yokohl
to be humbled by its blue Lupine,
white skiffs of Forget-me-nots
between the poppies and the golden

Fiddlenecks. My sky goes black!
Wings fold into freefall until I believe
            that she can still see
the brilliance of her poetry.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Currently misting with a little over an inch in the guage. Air clean and moist, quite a nice Sunday morning at daybreak.

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

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "It's really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.

Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."

"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

              LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
              30th Naval Construction Regiment
              OIC, Logistics Cell One
              Al Taqqadum, Iraq

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 4:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Ready for Winter
Section 17

Too Full To Fly
Sulfur

EAGLES

Run and beat the ground
with great wings in a frantic boil
of dust and last year’s
feed and seed,

an uphill waddle
seeking purchase
for the leap and declining glide
of gluttony.

Not all that proud afoot,
they stoop to carrion –
get scared and embarrassed
at the same time.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Sulfur Looking South

Mid-70s today at the higher elevations, much cooler in the Valley = inversion layer. Chance of rain Friday, Saturday & Sunday.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

                      Stand on your shore, old stone, be still while the
                      Sea-wind salts your head white.
                           - Robinson Jeffers, (“Watch the Lights Fade”)

Gray day,
grandfather oaks reach
with strong arms and leathery fingers
to catch the sun –
            a slow posing frozen
through centuries of seasons
on an elliptical track
to outlive the bickering of small birds,
            the raven’s escape
            or the ravenous eye
            of the dark hawk at dawn.

Now the color of sweet caramel,
near slopes of bleached dry feed
            melt into the creek,
into the string of sycamores burning
            after a freeze –
white limbs aflame without a storm.

Older than emotion,
cold granite teetering,
keep your naked secrets
and let the lichen hide
on your dark side.

Posted by John Dofflemyer at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)