Tag: Longhorn

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Twilight Longhorn Highlights

Twilight Longhorn Highlights
Twilight Longhorn Highlights

Twilight Longhorn Highlights

I’m not sure what it is about this capture. It is a low light image. It just stood out to me for some reason. I finished it bringing all the detail out of that cows hide that I could without introducing artifacts to the mix. I always expose highlights properly in the camera. Then I have to deal with the darks/shadow detail in the digital darkroom. This capture destined to become a silhouette image I thought. The detail that was hidden in the shadows yielded to my gentle coaxing. I think I really like the highlights on the cow itself. Certainly I like the whole mix lolol.

The Corriente’ Long Horn are a Spanish breed originally bred for the harsh conditions in the northern Spanish Pyrenees Mountains. They are smaller than our modern hybrids and pure breeds. They are also hardier, easier care for (as they pretty much take care of themselves). Add some basic yearly care (shots etc), some salt blocks and some magnesium lick in the spring when the rocket fuel (green grass) starts growing. Other than that, they paw the snow like Tonka to find grass and can easily handle a normal winter up here without additional feeding. Our herd mooches off the Angus herds feeding of course given the opportunity but they have gone some winters on their own. All did just fine and had wonderful calves in the spring those years. Tough cattle! 😲

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Twilight Longhorn Highlights

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Yearling Corriente Longhorn Bull

Yearling Corriente Longhorn Bull
Yearling Corriente Longhorn Bull

Yearling Corriente Longhorn Bull

Boy was this young bull a trouble maker. Corriente’s really don’t care too much about fences. He at 1 year of age got a whiff of some angus heifers and managed to spend the night before we got him out of that mess. Waaa Hooo… Barbed wire is no match for these guys motivated. His name is “Salt”. He mother is a short hair version of him colorwise. This is the only long haired Corriente we’ve ever bred.

Roping Cattle is a big local “sport” activity in this region. This young Corriente’ (spanish breed) are really good for practice on a cowboy/girl skill of roping from horseback. These cattle are fast and have shorter horns. It’s easier to get the rope around the horns. But the horns are big enough to have the rope cinch there. Versus angus purebreds, cattle of this breed are ALL athletes. Many ranches have some if they are active cattle operations with real cowboys. The “Sport ” of roping is part of most rodeos/ ranch work. Practical skills used in cattle ranching and the sport of such. Practice makes perfect.

He spent his summer running from horses. Then being roped is usually the end result. . Lopped off were the two items causing his bull issues. So he’s not quite as much of a problem lol. He will be a sporting cow for a year until he get too big or his horns get too long. He’s getting a bit big already.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Yearling Corriente Longhorn Bull

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Corriente Longhorn Playing Hathor

Corriente Longhorn Playing Hathor
Corriente Longhorn Playing Hathor

Corriente Longhorn Playing Hathor is a capture from earlier this winter. The orange/peach colored alpenglow accented by the cloud blush off the snow in the foreground.. This was a very good year for snow early but not so much now. This was a standoff. Me versus her. I just look brave as there as a cattle gate between us as I got down on my knees looking for the reincarnation of the Egyptian God Hathor.

The orange Alpenglow is the result of atmospheric ice refracting light. All with lots of help from the the red light that make it through that hundreds of miles thick filter. I very carefully expose in the camera that sky to match what I saw at the time. The cow here is 100 yards out for my telephoto to get both the cow and the sky in the same focal field.

This Cow is NOT a Bull, just having horns does not a Bull Make. This is a mother I’ve had 5 years on ranch. … Nothing is certain up here but Winter and brown season lol. This picture hopefully will take you back to that early winter day.

If you don’t have a 100-400mm lens in your weapons chest, you need to consider it. You guy lenses for generations while fancy camera backs last a few years. I’m still using regularly a lens I bought in 1995.

Tip of the day:

You need to use a pretty high f-stop to get this deep a focus. Distance from the closest object is your friend in this kind of image. Deep focal fields come at the expense of loosing light. Your already in a low light environment in twilight.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Corriente Longhorn Playing Hathor

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Longhorn Mother Calf Twilight

Longhorn Mother Calf Twilight
Longhorn Mother Calf Twilight

Longhorn Mother Calf Twilight

Twilight is the time of dark blue and pink in the sky. Spring is the time of the calving. Add the two and you get a story to be told in this Diptych side by side image. (2-20 inch squares).

Corriente’ Long Horns are a hardy group having come over first to the “Americas” in 1493. Their descendants walk down this hill slope in this capture. A solid unbroken line since then. Hardy souls all with very little care required for their up keep. Just standard vet care for cattle. They pretty much fend for them selves but will mooch off the other cattle about if there are any. Last winter my small herd of 32 Corriente were the only cattle on the ranch. Besides some lick and some salt, I only had to feed the 12 Large Bales over the winter. They paw the ground to expose grass similar to how Buffalo do it.

I actually took this through the fence that surrounds our “compound. I had just returned from a photo mission and was closing up the homestead for the evening.. You know, closing gates so deer don’t cross them, putting the chickens to bed locking them into their coop. In the same motion I lock the creatures that don’t need to be in with the chickens out. We have a 8 foot high deer exclusion fence around about 10 acres we live in. It’s high and it’s electric. Not too much get’s through it. My cats negotiate it occasionally. I’ve actually seen where they get through and fixed several places but keeping out skunks is a tough one. I have kept porcupines at bay with my fences.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands

Title: Longhorn Mother Calf Twilight

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Bliss Dinosaur Ranch Gate

Bliss Dinosaur Ranch Gate
Bliss Dinosaur Ranch Gate

Bliss Dinosaur Ranch Gate

Happy New Years Eve All from myself and the rest of the crew on the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch.

Bye Bye that long decade. God bless all those we left behind in our travels

This image is “filed” under things I see coming home with a pile of cameras in a box next to me….. 📸📸📸📷📷📷 From my front driveway on one Alpenglow filled sky last winter. I had been taking photos of those two all evening against the sunset. This is one of the reasons I raise Corriente Long Horns. I like their profile photographically 😜

Cowboys roping dinosaurs is sort of what we do up here. There are over 10K fossils in the collection at this point. Most are small teeth and vertebra of course (1000’s), but we’ve found some nice fossils up here.

My New years Resolution is to take more photos of those fossils and get them on line for others to enjoy. Somebody might/will see something I’ve done wrong, an improper ID, something. It’s a good thing to do sharing. I learn as much as the rest of you writing as you do reading this stuff. I mostly double check my information lolol.

My dad’s famous saying was to me “Things are as they are, not as they seem or how you have been told. “. This applies to every thing you hear on the news these days. So enough narrative for New Years Eve. Be safe in crowds everyone (stay away from gun free zones), have a great time tonight. Moderation in all things please lolololololololololol. (I know my audience 😜)

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana Borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch Gate

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Corriente’ Longhorn Family Portrait

Corriente' Longhorn Family Portrait
Corriente' Longhorn Family Portrait

Corriente’ Longhorn Family Portrait (Sport Cattle….sort of like sport cars)😜

This is a mother and her last two children. Mom who is 6 is center, son at 6 months is left, daugher at a 1.6 years just right. The two gals are still on ranch with the little steer going off to be roped.

Roping Cattle is a big local “sport” activity in this region. These young Corriente’ (spanish breed) are really good for practice on a cowboy/girl skill from horseback. These cattle are fast and have shorter horns. They are ALL athletes versus an Angus bred for bulk. Many ranches have some if they are active cattle operations with real cowboys. The “Sport ” of roping is part of most rodeos and is an actual skill used in cattle ranching. Practice makes perfect.

The Corriente” Breed was brought into the America’s as early as 1493. These are a breed of Criollo cattle all descended from that old lineage. They are all to an animal tough, fast, self sufficient, and will paw at the snow and find grass in the winter. These are relatively tiny cattle compared to the modern beef cow. They almost went extinct with the introduction of bigger breeds. American Ropers and Doggers Know all about them. You know who you are 👀

Big Bulls are 1000 pounds, big cows weigh in at 800 pounds. Yearlings are around 400 pounds in both sexes. Qualities: Corriente” are Great Sports Cattle, These guys are supposedly easy to tame. They are lean beef and good eating. Small Herds are easy to keep. Hardy as heck, they actually require less food and water than other beef brands. Good cows to have a small herd of. They don’t take much diesel fuel to keep alive.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title Corriente’ Longhorn Family Portrait

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Corriente’ Longhorn Licker

Corriente' Longhorn Licker
Corriente' Longhorn Licker

Corriente’ Longhorn Licker was actually caught frame to frame edge in the camera lol.

This gal must have had a prickly pear cactus needle or something bitter she ate. This went on for a while as such I did have time to get the aim down. Not a crop, up to 2×3 feet.

Taken on a wonderful spring golden hour morning. Many calves were being born that month. The air was crisp, I was in an open Polaris Ranger. I was driving two track trails in the backcountry. (way off “road”). This small herd of pure bred mom’s we keep were off by themselves in cow paradise. Green Rocket fuel to eat, Lick blocks at the water hole for vitamins, lots of water around, moderate temps. They had an easy year as a group.

It’s easy to travel into the backcountry in the spring. I’m a landscape artist that is always looking of perspective and composition. You become a slave to lighting. If I see it and it’s interesting, I’ll bother to point a camera at it lol. I feel that you experience something deeper catching it in a good camera. I get to relive each experience working on the image in the digital darkroom for 10 minutes average. Then I write a 300 word or so narrative to accompany each image.

My Narratives… side note:

I write like Trump talks. Chain of consciousness plus I type very fast. Believe it or not, there is a technical reason to have long narratives on your post if your a professional photographer. Google will take note of you more/better and place you higher on search results. There are all sorts of technical things I do in my narratives to attract google. The saying is: If your not on the first or second page of google, your not going to be found. 300 words plus it is minimum per image I post. I post 6 a day. That’s around 2000 words I write each day. I’m not sure who’s going to compile it into books but I’m pretty sure there are a few books already written. Easy to assemble by sorting pages. The pages are out there already lolol.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Corriente’ Longhorn Licker

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Corriente’ Longhorn Twilight

Corriente' Longhorn Twilight
Corriente' Longhorn Twilight

A couple of the ranches Long horn Mom’s were hanging out near the back gate for this Corriente’ Longhorn Twilight the other evening. I had already returned from a few hours of photography out in the backcountry and was “winding down” ready to quit for the day. Then this happened.
I find that Light worthy of trapping occurs when it does and you have to be there. I was, it was and I did 📸📸

Exotic Cattle: Corriente’

The Corriente’ Long Horn are a Spanish breed originally bred for the harsh conditions in the northern Spanish Pyrenees Mountains. They are smaller than our modern hybrids and pure breeds. They are also hardier, easier care for (as they pretty much take care of themselves). Add some basic yearly care (shots etc), some salt blocks and some magnesium lick in the spring when the rocket fuel (green grass) starts growing. Other than that, they paw the snow like Tonka to find grass and can easily handle a normal winter up here without additional feeding. Our herd mooches off the Angus herds feeding of course given the opportunity but they have gone some winters on their own. All did just fine and had wonderful calves in the spring those years. Tough cattle! 😲

Why Longhorns?

We raise them of course to sell to local ranches that like to lasso the calves as that is an active sport here in cowboy country because you make more money than raising them for beef lolol. (Actually it’s just a better arrangement. A lot of places raise their own. Bulls are problematic from them though as they tend to just walk through fences and try to breed with your angus herd…. Not good lol.

Like most Cowboy sports… Roping is a sport that has a real life application as cowboys often have to rope cattle from horseback locally. I’m sure pretty much daily within a 20 mile circle from this ranch. This is still old west cattle country in many ways.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Corriente’ Longhorn Twilight

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A Corriente’ Long Horn Mom (Salt) in an Early Fall Snow

A Corriente' Long Horn Mom (Salt) in an Early Fall Snow
A Corriente' Long Horn Mom (Salt) in an Early Fall Snow

Our Corriente’ Longhorn Mom “Salt” enjoying her natural camo during that Oct 1 Snow storm we had. Every tree had and still has leaves on it. 4 inches of heavy wet snow came in and smooshed many small trees plus quite a few branches fell. Good natural pruning this year from the 70-80 gusts we had this summer AND the heavy snow. :).

Corriente’s are WAY tougher than standard purebred cattle. A lot of Spanish blood still remains . They pretty much take care of themselves with a little mooching off the main herd in the winter. Our herd is 15 animal pair currently (VERY SMALL) but another rancher has about 200 pairs on our place. Lots of grass this year.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.