a Wisp in a Wire
A young deer learning how to jump fences got a tuft of hair caught in the barbed wire.
Because She Can
Couple Things…
1) Just like humans, cows use their tongues to drink and break down food. But did you know that they curl their very large tongue around the grass and feed they eat? She then chews her food, swallows, then regurgitates the food as cud to be chewed again.
2) The average cow moves its jaw (and tongue) 40,000 to 60,000 times per day just chewing food.
But why does a cow stick her tongue up her nose? Well, because she can.
How’s that to spice up your Monday.
P.S. #249 says your eyes would water too if you had to stand out in this roaring wind today.
Taking a Breather
Wyoming is inhaling at the moment. The air is calm and warm and the sky is gorgeous. After several days of constant exhaling with 60 to 90 mph gusts, the grass is laying sideways and tree limbs are scattered throughout the meadows.
We might see snow from those clouds but for now, we are enjoying the calm beauty this Saturday.
the Cowboy Rides Again….
I failed to mention to you that with this image, matted and framed, I won first place last year at the Douglas State Fair here in Wyoming. I mentioned it on my Facebook page but didn’t write about it on the blog. I was encouraged by gallery members and friends to enter another. Yesterday was the reception for the second contest I’ve ever entered, the 3rd Annual Platte River Photography Show, also in Douglas. Patrick and I drove the icy roads last Friday to get my images entered and hung.
The competition was fierce with big cash prizes. It was an open show, no categories and you could enter up to 3 framed pictures.
I entered Daybreak, Bald Eagle, and the Chugwater Grainery. The Bald Eagle is on the easel in the image above, 3rd one from the left.
Daybreak is hanging on the wall in the middle of the image just above the blonde looking at the framed pictures in the table.
Third place went to the sweetest picture of a Horned Owl peeking through tree limbs. It was a cute one and a favorite. Now please allow me to toot my own horn…drum roll please…..Second Place went to Daybreak!!! I was so surprised and very excited. The cash prize will definitely help with my travels back east in the fall for my best friends wedding.
First place went to an elephant photographed in a zoo in Utah.
I am so honored to be recognized for my work and am inspired now to enter more competitions and to work even harder at my photography.
Thank you for encouraging me here at Uprooted Magnolia and for all of your comments, compliments and support. You give me confidence in my craft. ♥
*Edit* Duh, I’m obviously in the clouds and forgot to thank the Douglas Chamber of Commerce and the sponsers, Duke Energy and Cloud Peak Energy for providing the prizes.
Now, as soon as the 65mph gusty winds wind down, I will to get back out there with my camera.
Bye for now,
Leah
Meet BK Kitty
This is BK Kitty (Black Kitty Kitty). She is black as night with the brightest yellow eyes. I know the name isn’t all that creative but when I give an animal a schmooshy name, I get very attached. Because she’s an outside cat and a wanderer, the generic name gives us distance as I’m trying not to get too close. She hangs out on the front porch and with her boisterous singing voice, has successfully adopted us.
She is so sweet and oh so hyper. She doesn’t sit still for our photo shoots and she’s always on point. So serious in her hunting, she has her eyes and ears peeled at all times. She follows me around the ranch on my frequent photo hunts. She slinks through the tall grass and peeks through with those bold, yellow eyes.
Hopefully I haven’t crossed your eyes or given you a headache with this shot. But it’s a perfect example of her not being very cooperative on our photo shoots. As soon as I get her composed she moves in too close and I can’t focus.
So I put the wide angle lens on and captured her after her meal.
With the windchill, the temperature was about 5 below zero yesterday. I couldn’t go beyond the porch without my face hurting from the roaring winds and freezing temps. I’ve made a very warm fleece bed for BK in our shed and she has a cozy place to stay during the cold days. Patrick says she’s been around the ranch for a few years now and has weathered many cold winters. She’s a tough one and I’m happy to have her around. The only one that doesn’t care too much for her is my inside kitty, Matilda. But that’s a story for another time.
warm winter wander
It was a fairly warm and breezy day yesterday so I was finally able to take a walk around the ranch. FINALLY!
I took a 3 hour hike and could have stayed out longer if it didn’t get dark so early. It was so peaceful though, all I saw was this downy woodpecker. He was going from willow to willow, eating bark and seeds. I saw some deer in the distance and spooked a few across the river but mostly it was quiet and uneventful. Speaking of the river…
I thought the frozen grass under the ice looked pretty cool.
It’s snowing today and is supposed to for much of the week. I’m looking forward to hearing the snow crunch under my boots. Until then, stay warm my friends.
Only From the Heavens
Oh Wyoming sunsets, how I love thee.
In the rearview mirror, I see this. Over the flats of the Mule Shoe Ranch, the mountains are crowned with streaks of gold and red with the cyan sky peeking through.
To my right, red and orange and pink hues hover above the meadows.
Breakfast Date
Patrick bundled up and headed out early this morning so this little squirrel and I had breakfast together. For a couple of days now, in the early morning, I’ve watched him go from the hay stacks behind the house to our front yard and up a tree. He’s finding nuts and seeds and has his meal right here, in the privacy of his own tree. So today I joined him by the window.
Happy Friday everyone. Hope you have a great weekend.
Herding Home
We’re slowly leading cattle out of the hills into lower pasture closer to home. They’ll be having their calves soon and we don’t need daily trips into the snowy hills looking for cows and their babies.
It was cold and windy but at least the sun came out occasionally which created nice lighting.
Usually my view while herding is full of backsides.
So I moved around front to get their beautiful faces.
They went through the gate and that gave me a minute to get a shot of the gorgeous view from up high.
The beautiful Cooney Hills were lit through the overcast sky.
Once we got into the next pasture, Patrick set out mineral tubs and salt for them. They LOVE this stuff.
I stayed back. I know not to get in the way of a pregnant woman and her sweet tooth!
Double Exposure
Remember the old film days? Remember being so upset that you put an exposed roll of film back in the camera and photographed your friends new perm over the same roll you shot grandmas birthday cake? I did that when I was a kid with mom’s camera that held 110 film. I can now look at those pics and laugh but back then it was upsetting. When I was an assistant to the number one photographer in my hometown, there was a system to make sure this didn’t happen. Unexposed film was in one pocket of the camera bag, and exposed went in another.
But, when it came to this Magpie, I had 2 exposures of her that I liked. So I stacked them in Photoshop and gave it some texture. I enjoy illustrating photographs on days we are being pummeled with extreme wind.
Hope you have a great start to your week! It’s a beautiful Monday here so I’m headed out to help shuffle some cattle around. We’ve got to start getting them closer to home because their new bundles of joy will be arriving in the next couple of months!
Compadres
I dared to take a walk in the winds of the wild and got as far as the horse gate. I went in and scrubbed on some noses and cheeks. These two, Gus and Hillbilly, are best buds.
Balance
“We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.”
- Ellen Goodman
We’ve been battling wind these first days of the new year and moving cattle while trying to keep our feet (and wheels) firmly planted on the ground. I’ve been trying to shoot but have come up with almost nothing. It’s been a little frustrating. But like this pheasant, with poise, I will take these winds head-on and power through because even though it’s been a somewhat flawed start, there is great potential.
Here’s to keeping our balance as we look to improve ourselves and rise above.
Onward and Upward,
Leah
♥
New Year, New Dimension
The winds died down late in the afternoon yesterday and I was able to take a walk before the sun set behind the mountains. It was warm and gorgeous. Felt like I was in the eye of this storm system we are experiencing. We had the Chinook winds the day before yesterday and today it is gray and blowing snow sideways at about 45 mph. So in honor of this bizarre behavior of mother nature, I’ve resigned myself to the sofa to watch a marathon of old Twilight Zone episodes on the Syfy channel. I’m a big fan of The Twilight Zone.
We are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. I hope you will join me for another year in this bizarre land we call, Wyoming.
Happy New Year my friends!
a Chinook of a day
So, I’ve talked about windy Wyoming before but yesterday was for the record books.
We drove around the southeast on ranch business with the pedal to the floor at 100mph but ground speed was only about 60. On highway 30, dirt was being blown 20 to 30 ft in the air. Patrick and I had to yell just to hear one another because the road noise was so loud. The truck doors and windows rattled and I swear the windshield cracked a little more.
Once we were on the interstate heading home, we saw a wall of weather straight ahead and we weren’t sure what was in there. Snow or rain?
As we got closer, my palms got sweaty.
At least to my right, I saw blue sky. How bad could it be? (Excuse the dirty window. If I rolled it down to shoot, I would have been sucked out and blown across the prairie. And I wasn’t up for that risk.)
The digital highway signs we telling us that winds were 65+mph. I just knew we were going into a hurricane.
Turns out, we were experiencing a Chinook wind. But it was kind of a letdown, or a relief depending on how you look at it. Once we got into that weather wall of rain, sleet, and snow, the wind died down and it got eerily quiet. Not much really happened.
A Chinook Arch over the bluffs in Chugwater WY
-After doing my research, I’ve learned that a Chinook wind is a Foehn wind. A rain shadow wind that has dropped it’s moisture and these turbulent winds have created warmer temperatures.
Thank you Wikipedia.
We got to the ranch where the wind had finally let up and it was peaceful until about midnight. All night and today the winds are back to howling and beating up the grass and trees. Any remaining snow has melted away.
In the high country of Colorado, there were wind speeds up to 102 mph. Can you believe that? We aren’t the only ones experiencing the high winds and we are thankful that the temperature remains in the 50′s. That’s good for the livestock.
We’re not sure what to expect for New Years Eve but snow is in the forecast. We’ve had several invites for various activities but we just might sit this one inside by the fire watching it on TV. Needless to say, we’re not too anxious to get back on the road after the slick pavement over Christmas and the wild winds of yesterday.
Chancy Sunrise
I risked life and limb this morning to bring you our sunrise. I hope you like it.
No, but really, the wind is howling at 50mph with 65mph gusts today. As you can see, the 8 inches of snow has blown off of the meadow and it has warmed up from the teens all the way to the 40′s.
We had a white Christmas though. We should have considered ourselves snowed in but we were stubborn. We busted through snow drifts and drove off-road to get out and visit family. It was worth it. We had a good time with family and friends.
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are recovering from it all.
Family Portrait
This family is my most recent client for a Christmas card portrait. Mom and Dad were great and looked at the camera the entire time. The two young ones finally looked at me on the last shot but the teenager at the far left just wouldn’t cooperate at all. There is always one in the bunch!
Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season. Many HUGS from us here at Uprooted Magnolia. Thank you again for being loyal viewers of our little blog. ♥
Knee Deep
White, powdery snow is up to our knees out here! I had a heck of a time walking to explore yesterday morning, especially with cameras strapped to me. I made it to the horses and as soon got near, Pepper pulled his head up with a mouth full of grass and ran right up to the fence. His winter coat is covered in icicles and snow. He and Crazy Alice visited with me by the fence for a while until they dropped their heads back down to look for more grub. I went back to the house and put another log on the fire. Brrrrrr.
I jumped in the truck with Patrick later in the day to help with a few chores around the ranch. It was a beautiful evening with a light pink and blue glow in the sky. It was so still and quiet, all I could hear was the river running underneath the ice in the distance.
But this morning is a completely different story. The wind is blowing about 30 mph and the chill is about 10 below. Needless to say, getting firewood this morning was no fun. I’m not going out there with my camera so this is a shot from the window.
Hard to say if we’ll be snowed in for Christmas. The road out of the ranch could very well be drifted in and four-wheel drive can’t even get us out of that. But we are fortunate to have power, wood, and groceries. The sun us rising as I type this and the sky is clear and blue. It will be interesting to see how today plays out.
Evening Snow
Happy Winter everyone. We are getting hammered with a beautiful snow storm this evening and I’m settled in with a hot cup of tea (I might sneak in a s’more after dinner, shush don’t tell anyone).
I’m looking forward to hearing the snow crunch under my boots on my walk tomorrow. I hope to bring you some images of winters kiss and in the meantime, please enjoy this image of our driveway.
Hugs,
Leah
The Big Hoorah
We drove up into the hills to put out salt and mineral for the cows when Patrick spotted movement about a mile away with his hyper-vision. It was a herd of Bull Elk fighting on a flat.
Just look at this guy in the top right. He would circle the herd, run toward the hill and then turn back around to charge one of the others.
He’d go at it with one…
…and turn around to fight another.
I’m sure glad these guys made it through hunting season. Such an awesome sight to see in our backyard.
Windswept
The sky tried to snow all day yesterday and it did a little but didn’t stick. I tried for a walk early this morning but the wind is just howling. I spotted this turkey feather blowing all around before sticking to the tall grass. It took off just after I captured this so all I came home with was one image and some dirt in my eyes.
‘S okay…it’s forecasted to be calm and maybe a little snowy tomorrow. Hope you’re having a more tranquil and productive Tuesday than me. 
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