Overflow

Water is sitting everywhere. I plan my daily wardrobe around my navy blue rain boots. Patrick has had this property for over 15 years and he has never seen the river overflow into the meadows this high before. It’s just so unusual for this dry climate that I have grown accustomed to. We aren’t complaining about the moisture but we sure wouldn’t mind if the rain would stop. Today, however, we are in store for more thunderstorms. We aren’t flooding near as bad as Texas, thankfully, and my thoughts and prayers go to them.

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A Quiet Spring Storm

A quiet storm blew in right off the hills and into the meadows. Standing on the porch last night, all I could here was heavy, sopping wet snow hitting the ground. I couldn’t see the hills and not long after this shot, I couldn’t see the horses. Normally the upper portion of this frame, as you’ve seen before, would be rolling hills and sky. But the only thing there is cold, wet snowdrops settling in for the night.
This morning, we woke up to a blanket of snow. In May. Ugh.

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Twinkle

The sun can came out briefly this weekend and twinkled like little stars in the puddles around the meadow.
Looks like rain all week. I guess rain boots and umbrellas are in store for all of my shoots this weekend.

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Clouds Over Cows

“Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.”-Gavin Pretor-Pinney

We’re still here… underneath cloudy skies and rain. We haven’t floated away yet. Water is standing everywhere we step and the cows have muddy snouts. They are loving the abundance of green grass. Happy cows. Happy ranch. 🙂

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Peeking Through the Storm

Clouds briefly opened up at sunset during a downpour over the hills last night. We have more storms on the horizon for today. Might be a wet weekend for us here in the wild west.

Have a great one, folks! 🙂

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High Tide

It’s been a very wet spring so far with more rain to come. The Laramie River is high and rapid and is crashing against the bank. It’s pretty spectacular.

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Round Up and Branding

This Mother’s Day weekend was a rainy and snowy one. But last weekend the weather was perfect for a cattle roundup and branding. Below are images of that day.

After saddling the colt , he saddled his horse for the round up.

The boss got some help from his daughter with buckling up his chaps.

Making final adjustments to the cinch.

Discussing the route for gathering cows and calves.

And…they’re off!

Before branding the calves, we worked/doctored the cows in the barn.

Getting the horse ready for roping calves.

We start them young out here in the wild west.

Hot irons sit and wait. The flames are powered by a propane tank.

It was a nice day with friends, old and new. After the calves were all branded, they let them out of the corrals to mother up. By early evening, they all found one another and are doing great.

If you’d like to see more from this day, go to my website HERE.

Thanks for looking… 🙂

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First Saddling

This young horse hasn’t worn a saddle much and had to learn how to back out of the barn. It’s all about trust between cowboy and horse. When Patrick saw this image, it made him think of the Charlie Russell painting “Bronc for Breakfast”. Quickly noticing the dust and dirt in this image, he said the next shot would be the bronc bucking around the corral as soon as he left the barn. Happy to say that didn’t happen. He stayed tied to the fence post and was well behaved.

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A Cowboy’s Vessel

Happy Monday, friends!
We had an eventful weekend full of horses, cows, cowboys, snapping turtles, and good friends and it couldn’t have been better. The rain held off down here but the thick clouds drenched the hills. The river is high and muddy and since we don’t have a boat, Patrick had to cross it horseback to mend fence. Gray did well at a branding and on the ride home, helped us lead our bay horse to the barn so he could go home with the best horse whisperer we know. Oh, and speaking of the river being high, we, ahem, Patrick, captured two HUGE snapping turtles out of puddles in the meadow and relocated them. They are a danger to the cows and especially the calves. Anyway, that was an adventure all in itself. Those things are scary!!
Hope you are having a great start to your week. I’ve got a lot of images to share with you from the weekend, sans turtles. 😉

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a peaceful rainfall at sunset

Beautiful light at sunset during a rainstorm last evening. It was such a peaceful and sweet sound.

Have a wonderful weekend! It’s a busy one for us, how ’bout you?

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