See You in the New Year!

Looking forward to more of these beautiful sunrises and sunsets in the coming New Year. I don’t usually do resolutions but I have set some goals. Does that count? Same difference, right? 🙂

Business was so great this year and I have the best new and returning clients out there. I loved photographing all those beautiful faces, especially during our fantastic autumn season. Here is a glimpse of only some of those faces. I’ll have my website updated soon with all of these sessions and more.

Even though 2015 was a bit stressful with damaging weather and other complications, it has improved these last few months. I think that’s good sign that next year will be bigger and better.
Looking forward to seeing you all in the new year!
Cheers to you and yours,
♥ Leah

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Weaning at Sunrise

We weaned calves under a gorgeous Wyoming sunrise earlier this week.

In the midst of this busy portraits season, I changed hats and cowgirl’d for the day.

The cows are pretty gentle and they like us a lot so it’s pretty easy to get them to follow us in the truck. Patrick calls for them while I rattle the cake sack. Works every time.

Tom hangs behind to make sure no one breaks off from the herd.

The went right into the corral and then we sorted them. We took the steers to the sale and brought have 5 heifers home, bawling for momma. I’m keeping the bunk full of hay and by day 4 (today), they have settled down quite bit.

Have a great weekend folks!

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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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Traffic Jam

Say what you will about my choice to leave city life for the country. Even though I miss bits of living in a big city, I’ll take this traffic jam over road rage and exhaust fumes any day.

I love my early morning commute.

Happy Monday everyone!

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Overcast Sunrise

It was a busy weekend with shoots, computer work, and calving. The calm, overcast sunrise this morning was just what I needed to feel refreshed. Hope you are having a wonderful Monday. 🙂

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-3º at Sunrise

A friend of ours called this morning and said it was -29º at his place but he lives in the mountains. It’s only three below zero here. My goodness! There isn’t a lot of snow on the ground however. The air is just so cold and cuts like a knife. I stepped out for a couple of seconds to shoot the sunrise illuminating the Peak. My skin tightened up, my eyeballs teared up and froze and camera strap grew stiff. I think I’ll stay in until it warms up a little. At least until it gets above zero.
Stay warm folks! It’s not even “officially” winter yet!

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Turqoise Sunrise

The leaves have all but dropped but I grabbed this scene early one morning a couple weeks ago. As the sun slowly rose, the light was a rich turquoise for a few moments through the thick fog. A day late for a Halloween photo but it’s kinda spooky, eh? 🙂
Hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween.

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Glitter and Cranes

There was frost on everything yesterday morning.

As the sun rose, it turned to glitter. It was so still and beautiful.

The Sandhill Cranes have started to migrate back but probably weren’t expecting the chill of Sunday morning. I’m glad to see them but the calves aren’t too sure what to make of them.

Happy Monday and Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!

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Luminous Hills

After moving cattle through the meadows and up to the top of the hill, I watched the sunrise illuminate the hills  behind the ranch.  With the moon still hanging high, I filled my eyes (and my lens) with the amber and gold and the beautiful blue sky. It’s a soothing way to start the day.

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Snowy Sunrise

I took a walk as the sun came up.

The blanket of ice and snow crunched under my boots. I love that sound.
 

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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.

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Today, at Daybreak

Daybreak

I have prepared several images of our gather at sunrise but when I got to this one, I felt it should have an entry all to itself.
This morning the air was crisp and cool. The gather went smoothly and the cattle drive flowed seamlessly. Everything fell right into place, especially this photograph. I’ll share the other shots with you tomorrow.
I am craving a print of this right now.

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Beautiful Morning

I woke up at sunrise to this beautiful sky. What a gorgeous start to the day.

After admiring the beauty and singing “Morning has broken, like the first morning”, I went to the barn to sit by and watch the heifer (first time mother) that gave birth under this morning sky. It was  obvious she didn’t understand what was going on and what she was supposed to do. All she knows  is she had a belly ache and then this thing that looks like a dog is laying on the ground. I spent an hour with her and watched as she licked and simulated the baby. At this point, the calf is smarter than mom because he knows what he needs and will not give up trying to get into “the pocket”. He finally did. Phew!

Then I came in for chocolate chip pancakes. More on the heifer and calf later.

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Beauty, sunrise to sunset.

Beauty, sunrise to sunset.

There’s nothing like:

Turkey’s gobbling at sunrise.

And playing peek-a-boo with the hens after breakfast.

And peek-a-boo after lunch. You can’t see but she could not fit another bite in her belly.

More peek-a-boo with wildlife. (can you tell I miss my nephew?)

And sunsets over the mountains.

With a bluebird chirping us along the rocky trail.

I do believe springtime has arrived in Wheatland my friends.

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