Here We Go Again

Yes, yes I know there are a lot of people who wish they could get just a glimpse of some of the wildlife that we see here nearly every day but it doesn't make having them here all of the time any easier to deal with.



Every year one or two large herds of elk show up around our place. Fortunately, they favor the new green grass on our neighbor's fields but that doesn't stop them from paying a visit to our fields and taking down our fences as they come and go.

There is always a lead cow that chooses where the herd goes.


Then comes the rest of the cows, last years calves and the small bulls


Then the larger bulls bring up the rear. It's the same story every day.


This particular day I was feeling rather frisky as this herd headed straight towards my lower field so I grabbed my camera and made a mad dash for the closest vantage point I could muster without being spotted. Sneaking up on elk isn't rocket science mind you but it is harder then most people think it is. On this particular forray into wildlife photography I sprung my crotch climbing over the fence, tore my pants on the blackberries, lost my rubber boot in the boot sucking mud and poked my boob on a wayward branch. None-the-less in spite of my lungs heaving for air and my hands shaking from exhaustion I managed to get a few shots.

BUT, yes there is always a BUT in wildlife photography; the elk were MOVING and the lighting was less then ideal for shooting a moving object with a 300 zoom lense and shaking hands. Oh well. None of the shots are worth framing but they are better then what I've gotten in the past. At least this time I didn't feel like spiking my camera off the floor after I downloaded the photos.

Good bye for today elk. That's a big darned herd!

I'm hoping for some inspiration

I haven't been making very frequent entries lately for a couple of reasons. One is, I haven't been able to come up with a clever, entertaining topic. Another is, I haven't been out getting any wonderful photographs of anything. The good news is, I am only going to be working 1 day a week for the next month or two or three or four so I'll have a lot of time to go out searching for that perfect photo opportunity so stay tuned!

In the mean time, I'll entertain you with this cute picture of Mr. Piggelsworth and his buddy Doctor Doodle Duck.

Snow, EEKS!

I don't think I'll ever wish for a white Christmas again. EVER. We got burried in the snow, nearly 4 feet of it. Our power went out and didn't come back on until a couple of days after Christmas, it was out for six days. I didn't get to work for 3 weeks but I sure stayed busy trying to keep up with this place and all of the animals here.

To give you an idea of just how deep it got here is a picture of one of my fences, just the tops are showing and that is not a drift, it's that deep everywhere.



You can't even see Marlboro Man's junkers! Okay, that can be a good thing!


Toby kept getting covered in this annoying snow balls!


Before it got too deep the horses enjoyed the snow too.



Barns all around us were caving in including 6 indoor arenas just in my area. Of course that really made me nervous but luckily we were smart and had our barn fully engineered rather then just putting up an ag building. That meant that the building was engineered to withstand a 4 foot snow load. At the time I thought that was crazy, we'd never get that kind of snow, YEAH RIGHT! We had to spend over $6000.00 upgrading the trusses, perlins and beams to meet the county standards and boy was I ever glad that we did, it sure paid off this winter.

I tried to photograph the snow but when I was faced with endless white everywhere I had a really rad time capturing anything worthwhile. So here are a few weak attempts at being creative.