"White faced cattle lowing, sagebrush everywhere

Granite spires are standing all around

I'll tell you folks it's heaven to go ridin' down the trail

Just to watch the desert sun go down"

from Riding Down the Canyon

   as performed by Arlo Guthrie

As always when on the farm I went out to marvel

at the mismatched horns and coat palettes that

constitute Ralph's herd I did notice the Angus Black

seems to be disapperaing. 

Again with a tip of my hat to Roy 

(at roynaturelogbook see my  links )

I have declared a Cow Day.

Dreams of Disarmament

Harry the great polled Charolais

swollen as the sin of pride,

heavy with muscle and vitality

counts his kingdom of one

way out in the far field.

He spares us only one baleful glare

for his thoughts are far away

down to the main corral where

Morely the half-pint Hereford

flashes his horns for an admiring throng.

Guy

" It is a winter's tale
That the snow blind twilight ferries over the lakes
And floating fields from the farm in the cup of the vales,
Gliding windless through the hand folded flakes,
The pale breath of cattle at the stealthy sail,

And the stars falling cold,
And the smell of hay in the snow, and the far owl
Warning among the folds, and the frozen hold
Flocked with the sheep white smoke of the farm house cowl
In the river wended vales where the tale was told. "

from A Winter's Tale

Dylan Thomas

More from the farm.

                                       

"When for too long I don't go deep enough
into the woods to see them, they begin to
enter my dreams. Yes, there they are, in the
pinewoods of my inner life. I want to live a life
full of modesty and praise. Each hoof of each
animal makes the sign of a heart as it touches
then lifts away from the ground. Unless you
believe that heaven is very near, how will you

find it?"

from The Faces of Deer

Mary Oliver

" Now do U understand what heaven is

it is the surround of the living"

                                             The Changing Light at Sandover

                                                          James Merrill

"In the small beauty of the forest

The wild deer bedding down—

That they are there!

                              Their eyes

Effortless, the soft lips

Nuzzle and the alien small teeth

Tear at the grass

                              The roots of it

Dangle from their mouths

Scattering earth in the strange woods.

They who are there."

from George Oppen

           Psalm

We were able to get out to the farm over 

Christmas but a mixture of lots of snow, very 

cold temperature and the colds we brought 

with us meant we did not drop by the cabin and 

I did not get as many good photos as I had hoped.

However we did get in lots of visiting and  saw

the family so that was good.

Deer were abundant  this year their trails running

thru the garden across the lane and over to where

Ralph has stacked his bails. They were making great

headway in ripping them apart and you could see 

deer passing back and forth from the windows.

"Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one
that your life conceals, the one waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after the sermon."

from The Gift

                                  William Stafford