Round Up Part one

Last Saturday I discovered that I don't function very well at four fifteen in the morning. My alarm went off and I didn't even move. Lenore had to wake me up. I pretty much dragged myself out of the house and onto the road. The first hour of the drive up to Island Mountain Ranch was pretty easy driving north on Highway 101. After turning off Highway 101 onto Bell Springs Road the rest was mostly pure dust for two hours of one lane roads a I was following one of the cowboys rigs into the ranch. I hung back as far as I could but there is a maze of roads once you turn off of Bell springs road onto the Adanac ranch and I didn't want to get lost. At one point we did hold back too far and we missed a turn and got lost. With a little back tracking we figured it out. The sweeping views of the Eel River were spectacular. We arrived at Island Mountain Ranch with out any fanfare. There were quite a few cowboy rigs scattered around on the pastureland below the corrals with the most common rig being a fifth wheel livestock trailer with a good sized pick up and the requisite cattle dog. The group of cowboys I was with got right to work unloading their horses and jumping right in helping to separate the calves and unbranded cattle from the rest of the herd. Following that they were selecting about ten calves at a time into the branding pen. Here a team of two riders would rope the calf. One mounted cowboy was the header and one was the heeler. Once they were roped the ground crew of two to five people would rush in to push down the calf so that it could be branded, dehorned and castrated if it was a male. We worked until one before heading up to the main ranch house for a generous lunch. I had a fantastic time photographing the event. Part two tomorrow. God's love and blessings to all, chris All images created with a Canon 7D and a Canon 28-135 IS lens

That's A Lot of Bull!

I spent a good portion of today editing images from a cattle round up I attended on Saturday. I've got many, many more images to go. The ranch had several massive bulls. Here is one of them. Let's just say that I gave them a wide berth and stayed out of their way especially since I was on foot and not on horseback. More images of the round up to follow over the next few days. God's light and love to all, chris Image created with a Canon 7D and a Canon 28-135 lens.

Island Mountain Round Up

On Saturday I was privileged to attend a round up on the Island Mountain Ranch. The ranch is located in a very remote rural area of northeastern Mendocino County in Northern California. Getting to it involved driving on dusty one lane dirt roads for over two hours through oak woodlands, redwood and fir forests. My kind of place.I knew we had arrived when we rounded a corner and came up a rise and there were horse trailers,jeeps and four wheel drive trucks all parked below a tree covered corral. There was quite the gathering of cowboy and girls with their families that had come to help with gathering,sorting cutting and branding. Among them there were quite a few talented ropers and a very experienced ground crew. They were bringing the calves and the few yearlings they missed last year into the corral eight at a time. Then one roper would lasso the head of the calf and another roper would heel it with another lasso. The ground crew then quickly got to work for the branding, dehorning and cutting. It was never ending action and teamwork.Lunchtime came as a well needed break. There were ice chests full of beer, soft drinks,water and a nice spread of cold cuts lettuce,onions and tomatoes for sandwiches. After lunch they rounded up more cattle and sorted them and the whole process started all over again.I photographed all kinds of action and people changing to different lenses for different perspectives. Though I must say I was really happy when they finished with the last calf and the call to dinner was made. Dinner was spectacular. There was Pulled Pork,Clam Jambalaya,potato salad, abalone, steak,corn on the cob and of course fresh Rocky Mountain Oysters from the day.After a short dinner (I wish could have had more) we made the long drive home under the almost full moon. I didn't make it home until just a little after two in the morning. I spent a lot of time sorting images over the last couple of days.The most difficult thing to do was to limit the number of images to put up.Gods precious love and blessings to all,chris