Typical Hometown 4th of July Parade

Yesterday we celebrated the 4th of July in the small town of Willits where I live in Northern California.We celebrate in a pretty big way for such a small town. We commemorate the holiday with "Frontier Days" starting in late June going through until the 4th of July. Then much to the dismay of travelers we close U.S. Highway 101 for part of the day for a mile long race and then a parade. After the parade there is a huge BBQ and then a rodeo.




Frontier Days had its beginnings back in 1926. Then many of the prominent citizens and the American Legion hatched the idea of a rodeo as a fund raiser for building a new hospital. Later in 1927 Frank Howards (the owner of the race horse Sea Biscuit) son was killed in tragic accident on the Ridgewood Ranch south of Willits. Dr. Babcock, who ministered to the boy, approached Howard about erecting a hospital in Willits in memory of his son. Howard built the Frank R. Howard Memorial Hospital shortly thereafter. The American Legion decided to keep the fundraiser for continued funding of the hospital.



There is your short history lesson for the day.There will be a test! Here are the images from the parade.There were musicians,rodeo sweethearts,old cars and trucks etc.
I had a great time there watching it and photographing it with my family. God bless,

chris

Carnivorous?

Today I was still processing images from the Island Mountain Round Up. I took a break this afternoon and photographed a few Garter Snakes in the backyard pond. While I was lying on my belly by the pond I noticed a Hoverfly land on a Jasmine flower to feed. UH Oh! I thought to myself. Sure enough within seconds it was trapped by the probiscus deep into the flower.It was stuck and couldn't escape. Both my kids and I have found numerous hoverflys that have been trapped this way by the Jasmine flowers. Do the flowers need protein? Are they carnivorous? I have researched it a couple of times online and I can't find anything about this fact. If you know or find any information. Please let me know.

God bless,

chris

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

Marvelous Moths

Living in the forest there are a lot of insects. At night if we leave a porch light on moths of an incredible variety start fluttering around it. Last night I left the light on just to see what could be found around it in the morning.This morning there was quite the gathering. Have you ever taken a really close look at a moth before? I grabbed my macro lens to find out. They are really cool close up. Thier eyes are a lot bigger that you would expect them to be too.The muted patterns and subtle colors of the wings are pretty amazing too. Some pretty cool little creatures. God's blessings to all, chris