Category Archives: Cows

Six Word Fridays – Stretch, Cow Edition

Cows Have to Stretch for Treats

And They Stretch for Nose Rubs

Donkeys versus Cows with the Lomography Oktomat Camera

I got a new Lomography camera for my birthday from Nana, the world’s greatest MIL. This one is a 35mm film camera with eight lenses. It has adjustments at all. It has a fixed focus and there are no exposure adjustments, no flash, or even really a viewfinder and is certainly not wifi compatible. To take a pic you cock it and press the button and it operates a shutter on each of the lenses over the course of two seconds. Yep, pretty useless and I think that I’m going to love it.

I shot my first role in western Oklahoma during our weekend visit there. We were out visiting cows and donkeys.

Nolan the donkey thought it pretty interesting until he figured I wasn’t going to feed it to him.

The cows were not impressed either.

Then Nolan was like, “Here is my good side.” I got a little thumb action or something in there on one frame Nolan, sorry.

And then the cows wanted me to show their good side also. Good grief, can’t those critters get along.

Thanks for the new camera Nana! She is a MIL who has a good head on her, uh hm, shoulders?

Camera Critters – Tulsa State Fair

I went to the Tulsa State Fair Friday.

I don’t go for the food, the rides, or the cheesy merchandise.

I go because I like looking at the critters, especially the cows, and horses and the goats are interesting also.

Many of the animals were raised by young people. I think that it is great. Anything that takes kids away from their electronics is A-OK with me!

I don’t know a thing about these animals. I can generally tell a horse from a cow but don’t bet on it. These though are Belgian Blues. I think they are beautiful. According to wikipedia they are “double muscled” which gives them a muscular appearance but also means that they are very good at converting grass to lean beef. They are more pink in the photograph than what they are live. They have a beautiful blue color to them.

My sister Ellen posted in her blog the other day that she took a photography class and learned that when photographing critters the eyes should be the focal point. It was a revelation for me. There is a real difference in the “emotion” of the photographs where the eyes are the focal point and where you can’t see them. That Ellen, she is one smart cookie.

Herefords or “white faces” are another of my favorites. They have fallen out of favor I think because of the trend toward leaner beef. I think they are beautiful. Sorry, I couldn’t get one to look at me. I don’t blame them.

The goats are something else. Cows pretty much ignore everybody, the goats are checking everybody out.

Would you buy a used car from this goat? I wouldn’t.

The goats and cows both were being bathed and trimmed by their owners.

I came upon some young people showing off their horses. The tension level was high during the judging.

The horses and the handlers both were dressed to the nines.

The animals are beautiful, you can tell the young people and their parents had worked hard to get to this show.

If you live close to Tulsa the fair runs through October 7.

Camera Critters

Skywatch Friday – Watching the Skywatcher

I went on a business trip to western Oklahoma yesterday. I took pictures of drilling rigs, compressor stations, pipelines, grain elevators, wheat fields, and horses. This three were they only ones that took any notice of what I was doing.

Skywatch Friday

Lomographic 3G Cattle

A couple weeks ago we visited my wife’s “old home place” the ranch. A cousin of Sweetie’s is running cattle (as we say in Oklahoma) out on the ranch under the 3G brand.

Of course, I take all my cameras with me including my ultra low tech cheapie toy Diana Mini Lomographic analog film camera that can shoot half frames, to take the cheapie concept one step futher.

The thing about cows ( and you can write on the back of a postage stamp what I know about cows, and most of that would be wrong) is that they always show up if people show up.

That is it for the Lomographic Photographs, the rest are digital.

They have a couple of rescue donkeys. Here is Kim, the faithful girlfriend, feeding Juliet, one of the sweetest donkeys, you’ll ever meet. Kim showed up at her boyfriend’s family reunion and fit right in. Kim was styling with the hat and the cowboy (cowgirl?) boots. She was a good sport.

It was well over 100F that day, so SuperPizzaBoy hung out in the four wheeler with his uncle Glenn.

Sweetie was in her element. She loves all critters, except snakes. I can tell you that if you are snake, you would be wise to steer clear of Sweetie. Cows, kittens, babies, and puppies, Sweetie is the best friend that you will ever have.

This is Tyler, Kim’s boyfriend. He is a Marine artillery officer. When things get hot, you want to be where Tyler is, you don’t want to be down range.