Literatura y Espanol

Mike and Jaume Up River

I should be writing this in Spanish, but no voy a hacerlo.

Jaume, one of the exchange students, came down to help Mike for a couple days last week. Jaume's family is from Murcia in Southern Spain.

Jaume and Mestizo

One evening Jaume and I read a Borges story out-loud to each other. It was El Jardin de senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of the forked paths ), from one of the books his parents sent him.

The language of the story was dense, with sentences like tree roots grown together. It was also savory, the sounds meaty on my tongue.

Standing there in the kitchen, I had to tell Jaume this house was where I fell in love with Spanish.

Watching the three dogs cross the steers over the bridge

Thirty years ago our friend Little Duke Phillips moved here from Old Mexico with his library of books in Spanish, some translated, some not. Mike and I spent a month in his house, working on contract to build a big hay bunk out of railroad ties. In the evenings, after the kids were in bed, I'd go through Little Duke's books.

It was Neruda the Chilean poet who got to me. Even the translation was achingly beautiful. I knew the original poems on the opposite page were better and that made me sad and a little angry, because I couldn't read them.

Boots off at the end of the day

Now, after years of study, teaching, reading, dreaming, my Spanish is lonely. It's mostly books that keep it company. 

Jaume and I didn't speak much Spanish while he was there, but when he read, I could hear in his voice a tremor of heat, dryness, a little dust. And when I read, my voice carried the hint of warm currents rising upward along the Andes.

From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef

New Horse

Mike has a new horse. Winchester, or Chester or sometimes Chet. 

Glassing for cattle

Chester is a tall horse and a rock or an uphill side is handy to get on from. Shorter horses are nicer that way, but so far we have found Chester to be  mostly kind, active, and he stays on his feet. All good attributes in a coworker. 

Chester

I'm still riding Mestizo, the pack horse-turned saddle stock. He is sweet natured, catty, and herd bound. He's getting better, but he still gets nervy (Lippizaner style) when he loses sight of his pals.

Mestizo

We had a good ride to gather cows off the bar upriver. Chester hesitated at the river crossings, but Mestizo, the old hand, marched across and Chester followed gladly.

Near Magpie

Coming home in the near dark, I felt the comfort of a well-fitting saddle and my horse, knowing his way home, but not hurrying too much.

Almost dark

From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef

Weaning Time

Weaning time has come and gone.  Last Sunday we opened the gate and turned our 2011 calves back out to join the herd on the winter range. 

Loafing in the barn

The calves spent nearly the whole month of January in the corrals eating hay and we were fortunate to have mostly dry weather. During the few storms that dumped rain or snow, the barn provided good cover and Mike faithfully cleaned the bedding. 

Look at their eyebrows Grandma

Baling twine lariat

Dawson enjoyed being inside the feeder, helping pitch hay, or practicing his roping skills. He pointed out the calves' eyebrows and eyelashes to me and we admired his big black and white spotted heifer calf.

Ruby at the corral

Ruby spent most of her time down at the corral eyeing the calves. She never seemed to tire of watching their every movement, hour after hour.



Early in the month, Mike and Gabe helped the neighbor gather a few more head out of the breaks, hiking into the high basins and trailing them down on foot.

Already a good hiker

Dawson tagged along one day, staying in the bottom of Log Creek with Grandpa, while his dad climbed up to bring down a few cows. On the way home, they trailed some of our cows back from the Hall Place.

Trailing part of the herd back from the Hall Place

 It was a good January. Yes, there were times when it snowed, and blew, and rained and froze. But the sun was out an awful lot, and there were green things, little forbs poking up their first leaves, and ground cover sprouting a lacy bright carpet in the box elder grove.


We've turned the corner into February, the so-called "dying month", but for now, everything feels like it's about to come alive.


From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef

Stomping Grounds

Since the holidays ended this year, I've caught myself a couple times saying, "I want to rewind to a few days before Christmas."  It was a wonderful day, followed by another and another....

Prairie and Jon were here for a whole week.

Christmas breakfast 

Hot out of the oven

Christmas Day was filled with family. We had breakfast, church, ham dinner, the afternoon walk, and always music making, storytelling, gaming.

The afternoon walk

The day after Christmas we were thankful for generations of friends dropping by from morning till night with a parade of food, music, games and fun.

Day Two, the four panel - four artist project

Day three we headed to the river and Mike helped gather the neighbor's cattle out of the breaks. The first day he rode from dark to dark in torrential rain, his horse new to canyon, the soil thawed in places and greasy on steep norths. That night he rode in spent and filthy, weighted down with thirty extra pounds of sodden gear. The second day was dry at least, but even longer. 

Near the bottom of Tulley Creek

 Jon, Prairie and I fixed waterline and went hiking. The day after the storm we hiked up Tulley Creek to our old stomping grounds. Tulley was our first home in the canyon when we arrived from northern Idaho. Back then Prairie was 2 months old and Gabe was still in diapers. 

  

Almost to the bench

Prairie and I couldn't remember the last time we'd been to Tulley Creek. We used to hunt apricots near there. In July we'd make the scorching dusty drive, arriving at the old orchard, some years finding a jackpot and others not a single fruit. The reliable reward was the swimming hole and jumping off cliffs into the river. When the ranches sold and sold again and we stopped going.

Our first home in the canyon so many years ago

Now Tulley is in the care of McClarans, our long time neighbors and we had the rare bonus of bumping into a couple of the girls when we reached the house. They were heading north to sort and trail cattle on the bench. It was so good to see them and share a few words about the recent storm, nasty slick trails, the holidays and family.

Maggie at the creek

Beth gets the gate

I love this kind of understanding, with people who have worked and lived in some of the same places, places that in a way, now seem like friends and relations. 


From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef

A Lot of Thanks

Larry on his cell phone

Thanks Larry for helping us trail the cattle off the top of the ridge and through the canyon rims on a long cold, snowy, blowy day.

Thanks cows for travelling all those hours without out more than a few bites of grass while being poked by nosy calves who wanted a drink and a nap. You kept going, and after we called it quits at the end of the day, you marched right on down to the winter range.

Punch, one and a half years old

Thanks dogs for working with heart and speed, and for "down"  "stay" "walk up"  "away" and "come by. "

Bird ready to call it a day

Thanks Gabe and Cammie and Dawson for helping us get out wood in, for stacking hay, for all those miles of wire stretched and jacks built, and for letting us use Bird whenever we need another horse.


Thanks John and Tommy for building and fixing and sometimes even riding and branding. You've helped us keep critters in the right places, roofs on, fences up, and buildings in good shape.

Thanks Cheryl for walnut gathering adventures and all the other fruits and edibles that you help stock my larder with. Thanks trees and plants for making food for us to harvest.

Sara herding toward Thomason

Thanks Zeke for choring and fixing the computer many many times. Thanks Prairie and Jon for using your vacation to come home and build fence, move cows, chop ice or do whatever else is needed.

Off the top

Thanks Bill for being such a great neighbor, and helping our management in the canyon work.  Thanks Dave and McClarans for being there, for understanding the places and life and why we're out there. Thanks all you customers for encouraging us, for buying our beef, and for letting us know why you appreciate and enjoy this nutritious food. Thanks Phillips and Killam Families for helping us get a start on the Magpie Ranch and letting us put our energy and talents to use doing the work we love.

Thanks everybody who has visited, helped, listened and valued the land, the animals, the traditions and people in this special place "where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day."

Partners

From Sara at Magpie Ranch, Home of Bunchgrass Beef.

No More Bawling

Fuzzy heifer during weaning last year

Last night when I arrived home from work I could hear the incessant bawling of a neighbor's cattle down the road. It brought back memories of weaning and shipping time on the big ranches we used to work on here in Wallowa County. Most big ranches sell their 8-9 month old calves in the fall after the grazing season ends and before the long winter when cow herds are typically sustained on hay laboriously fed out each day in fields and feedlots.

I remember when the first snow flurries began to drift down through the big pines out north and hunting season populated the woods with wall tents and campers, the cowboys would be putting in long days gathering cattle from the prairies and timbered ridges. At the Steen Place, the cows and calves were trailed to a big holding pasture along Chesnimnus Creek, each day's gather adding bunches of cattle to the growing herd.

Before long, up to six hundred pairs, mother cows with calves at their sides, would swell the holding pasture, creating a dark tide of animals spread across the golden cured grasslands. When all the cattle were in, we'd herd them into the big corrals, sorting the calves away from the mother cows and turning the cows back into the holding pasture. That's when the bawling began.

Cattle trucks, contracted to haul the calves to sale yards or feedlots, made the long drive across the prairie to the ranch, arriving in the pre-dawn hours, their headlights lined up along the gravel road beyond the corrals. The calves were herded into alleys and up ramps into the cattle trucks, the one ranch job that I always dreaded. By lunch time, the trucks were gone and so were the calves, but the bawling continued.

At night, laying in bed inside the hundred year old log ranch house, I fell asleep to the bawling of the mother cows bunched outside the now empty corrals, and woke up in the morning to more bawling. Each day fewer cows lingered near the corrals, lured by hunger back to the farther reaches of the holding pasture, or perhaps knowing from experience that no amount of bawling would bring back their calves. By the fourth day, the silence typical of wild places returned and the cows were ready to move on.

Here at the Magpie Ranch, we don't sell our calves in the fall, we keep them as part of the herd for more than two years, ranging the canyons and prairies in multi-generational family groups. We do wean the calves when they are around ten months old, by holding them in corrals in the canyon and feeding them hay for a month, while their mothers are free to come and go outside the corrals. The mother cows can see, smell, lick and visit their calves every day if they want to. Once weaned, the calves are turned back into the herd to resume their natural lives and behaviors. 

Cows and calves during weaning

We are committed to providing our cattle the best life possible. If they are butcher animals, after two years, they are brought in small groups to the home ranch where they are humanely harvested. Listening to the bawling of the neighbor's cattle, I'm thankful we are able to practice ranching the way we do, learning from the past, honoring the future.

From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef

Moon Morning

Blue-silver, rust-fringed clouds around the moon this morning. Mike left early to inspect a ranch in Baker County and after he pulled out, I stood in the not-too-cold dark admiring the peaceful shift of clouds across the nearly full moon.

I'm thankful for the rain that has fallen this past week, but glad it's not raining this morning. I want to see the fields and breathe in the world as the dogs and I run out past the marsh and through the wheat stubble.

Dawson in the stock truck

Mike cut an enormous load of wood on Monday, hauling back two chords in the stock truck after spending the day in the woods with Gabe, Cammie and Dawson. It feels great to see wood piling up in the woodshed again. 

I got the onions hung in the cellar. Connie, visiting from Germany, helped me pull them out of the garden a few weeks ago. They were resting on tarps in the woodshed and needed to get out of there before Mike cut wood, so I braided them up, setting aside the ones without tops to use right away. 

Keeper onions in the cellar

The last of the Bartlett pears made it into the spiced preserves yesterday morning. They will be perfect for those corn-meal waffles we hope to share with visitors over the winter. 

There are a few plums left to deal with, and a big box of winter pears from Cheryl that I need to get into the dehydrator. But it still feels like a lull in the harvest frenzy. A quiet moment when nothing is clamoring for attention from the stairwell or back porch.  

I haven't forgotten those huge red apples in Joseph, the ones I trade a pie for to the guy who has the trees in his front yard. Or the prune plums I think my friend might have extras of, perfect for stewing. 

But for now, I'm going to wander out past the horse pasture, through the still-green alfalfa, and look for the moon in the new light of the day. 

From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef