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It seems we’ve been juggling lots of things as my daughter and grandson have arrived from Kauai for his birthday, corral repairs while getting ready to brand another bunch in Greasy, reading poetry in Reedley – a delightful evening at the Mennonite Peace Center – and another .70” rain last night while organizing another chapbook, UNEVEN GREEN, in my sleep. It’s a beautiful morning on Dry Creek – spread a little thin, but no urgency.
It is time, our true beginning of the year as we assure next year’s calves. The early morning air is filled with the bellows of bulls, testosterone ringing, hanging in the cottonwoods as we gather to put them out with the cows. The older bulls know, and the new bulls try to avoid this new intensity of posturing. Our bulls are fairly gentle and easy to handle, given time, but the air gets thick as space decreases in the corral. Some we can haul to the various pastures, but in Greasy we have to drive them to the cows. It always helps to have a bull who’s been there before, who knows the way, who knows it’s time to go to work.
We select the bulls for each bunch of cows, knowing some will change pastures, leaving a wake of broken posts and wire to repair. Let the games begin!
Clarence and Zach headed for the Top.
Chad Lawerence, Zack Shaver, Clarence Holdbrooks
Clarence & Rags
Zack & Banjo
We branded a little bunch this morning, a nice slow dance: two young men on two young horses, little calves, one at a time. Close to the house, we wanted to make sure that we had all our parts, that syringes worked, etc. before we mark some more on Friday. Beautiful day!
I’ve been holding down the fort this week, feeding, irrigating and making the rounds as new calves are hitting the ground. Robbin is in Reno at the Snaffle Bit Futurity with our neighbor, Jody Fuller, who has a horse entered there. Bob is gone to Belgium.
All that they do when they’re both home has been duly reemphasized. My pace is slow and methodical, too tired to write, or post much here. Looking across the canyon at home yesterday, I was reminded of Greg Brown’s ‘Living in a Prayer’.
If we could listen as well to our mother’s
mothers, pick a place that feels safe
away from the bunch, hidden from
the predators that work on our minds.
If we might be licked clean and hear
their heart's drum clearly in our own.
Age & Source: #313, August 14, 2010
Dry Creek is still running at the CDF Fire Control crossing (same spot as banner above) after a good, wet fall, winter and spring. Typically, Dry Creek has stopped flowing at this time of year.
Clarence Holdbooks & Robbin
Robbin and Clarence chat in front of the tack room after riding the steer calves last Saturday morning.
We're getting ready to wean and ship our Wagyu cross calves to Snake River Farms http://www.snakeriverfarms.org/ in the next ten days. Check out the archives in the sidebar to see these calves in August and October 2009.
We're pleased with this experiment with our first-calf yearling heifers. The calves average about 550 lbs.
Redbud & Live Oak in Bloom
Good to see Craig and Ronnelle Ainley using Dry Creek Road to move their Charolais-cross heifers up the canyon, about a five mile drive in all.
One at a time, we branded the calves of our first-calf heifers last Saturday. A nice slow dance with friends.
Lesley, Jody, Katy & Virginia Brandon & Mattie
Audrey, Allie & Riley
Virginia & Kenny
The difference between Longhorns and Holsteins is refined by the eye and the landscape they occupy, that ‘look’ consistent with and connected to place – a depth of meaning and experience for either breed, whether in the dairy barn or wide-open spaces. I believe that on the periphery, on the fuzzy edge of knowing, supposing, hoping (or not, for some) that art and poetry live. It is with this eye and its refinement that we appreciate and judge, search for, revere and recognize in all things. We are attracted to the ‘look’. Perhaps it’s that inexplicable personal magnetism that Newton sought to quantify, perhaps it’s our past lives, but it’s out there, waiting for its moment in the vast scheme of things.
STILL ALIVE
Gray between rains,
flames burn in my eye,
deadfall reduced to ash
other side of the creek
before it arrives.
Needless preparations
unless it never quits
to make up for three years
off-storming elsewhere –
like setting a nice table
for the grande dame
of this canyon, our
benefactor and lover,
the ferocious bitch
that owns us.
Driving between fires
above the brush racks
with my grandson, I see
red in a black oak stump
dancing at least a decade.
Jessica Dofflemyer photos
More rain today.
It turned substantially cooler at the end of September, dropping away from the string of 100 degree days and into the 70s with a few large raindrops as the tailend of a northern storm passed over central California. No complaints from man or beast! Most of our energies are still focused on pumping water for cattle, keeping the tanks full and feeding bulls and heifers.
Over half of our first-calf heifers have calved, as we begin their second cycle. Calving, thus far, has been easy on the coming two year-olds and their Wagyu X calves are active and healthy. Along the road, we’re pleased as to how much they look like the Angus at this stage.
Two year-old First-calf heifers
October 4, 2009
Wagyu X Calves
September 11, 2009
Our coming three year-old first-calf heifers were bred to Angus bulls. Quite a luxury to have them parade by the office window every morning anticipating a little hay.
3 year-old First-calf Heifers
September 29, 2009
Angus Calves
September 29, 2009
Dry Creek
March 7,2006
We’re getting good and wet, hillsides beginning to leak with yesterday's slow rain through this afternoon.
Dry Creek: .78 Total: 13.05
Greasy Creek: ? Total: 10.93 plus, plus, plus
Paregien: ? Total: 9.91 plus, plus, plus
March 3, 2006
Front Gate
December 16, 2005
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