Palouse Contours, Washington

The Palouse region of Washington is a remarkably beautiful area of rolling hills and well-kept farms.  Photographers enjoy patterns of green fields cultivated along the curves of these hills.  This is my second post from my recent trip with Linda.

We explored several areas looking for patterns in the cultivated hills.  These two photos were taken near Almota on the edge of the Snake River Canyon.  They are pretty good examples of how many of the fields are farmed wherever the hills aren’t too steep for machinery.  In fact, in many parts of the Palouse, special hillside combines are used.

These two photos were taken along back roads near Steptoe.  You can see what a wonderful effect cloud shadows have on the rolling hills.  Back roads are the best way to explore the Palouse because it is easy to stop anywhere without worrying about traffic.

The last two were taken very close together near the small town of St  John.  Very often two crops are planted on the same hill, for example, rows of garbanzo beans over wheat.  This often results in beautiful stripes or contrasting patterns.  This early in the year we found many fields with unplanted layers over lower bands of green.

It is a good idea to visit the Palouse in different seasons.  In the fall, harvest time brings out the big combines, and winter may add snow drifts to the curves.  The spring curves of new crops were just gorgeous.

Please respect my copyright, and do not use these photos without permission.

Palouse Barns, Washington

Linda and I got away for a week in the beautiful Palouse region of Washington.  I plan to publish at least three posts from this trip, and possibly more.  One of the sights we enjoyed was the abundance of barns.

This was one of my favorites.  It was in a quiet location near Manning.  The grounds are beautiful, with a manicured lawn and wild roses in the foreground. 

When photographing barns, it helps to include the setting instead of taking an ordinary close-up of the building.  Each barn has a photographic story.  This one somewhere on a back road near Colton is isolated in a field.  Notice that there are no roads or paths leading to the barn, so perhaps it is unused and abandoned.

The Dahmen barn in Uniontown is special.  It is surrounded by a fence made of over 1000 wheels and gears.  The restored 1935 barn houses the work of many first rate artists, including photographers.  We could have spent hours photographing this barn and fence.

One of the things I really enjoyed about these barns was how neat everything is.  The grounds of active farms were almost always immaculately kept, with no junk around.  This was true nearly everywhere we went in the Palouse.  Often, older equipment was restored and displayed on the property, like this color coordinated truck in Uniontown.

We spent a lot of time on back roads, and discovered a few abandoned farms.  This property included a house, outhouse, two combines, and other abandoned machinery.  The surrounding fields were still being cultivated even though these buildings were abandoned.   It was much easier to stop on the back roads and take pictures when we weren’t fighting busy traffic and looking for a place to pull over.

Clouds and shadows made a big difference.  This old barn near Colton wasn’t too exciting since the surrounding fields were bare dirt, but when clouds moved in, the shadows transformed the scene.

The back roads around Colton were just loaded with beautiful barns.  We were delighted to see two together here, and a low viewpoint added the cattle guard for extra interest.

The toughest part of this post was selecting some favorites out of the dozens we stopped to photograph.  The Palouse may not be a big tourist destination, but it sure is a great place for photography.

Please be aware that all my photos are copyrighted, and cannot be used without my permission.

Rainy Day Rodeo

Here in rural Idaho, high school sports include something most big city kids don’t have – rodeo!  There are lots of ranches here, and people are experts with horses, so rodeos are an extension of what they do for a living.

It has been raining here for days, and is so cold that the mountains on the edge of town have a new white coat of snow.  That made our high school rodeo even more difficult than usual.  Mud, water, and worse was everywhere as I worked my way through the horses and trailers to get to the rodeo arena.

Idaho kids are tough.  Here is a bull rider who was bucked off in the mud.  His hand was caught briefly, but he got out of it and walked away unharmed.

A saddle bronc rider also landed hard in the mud.  If you look closely, you can see his boot in the air over the horse.  I wondered how in the world a tight cowboy boot could fly off, but I learned that some bronc riders slit their boots so they will come off easily if their foot gets caught in the stirrup.

The next photo shows the dejected, muddy cowboy carrying his boot out of the arena.

Notice that he is also carrying a helmet with a face guard.  Safety is taken seriously here.

If this had been a big professional rodeo, I would have been stuck in the stands on the far side of the arena, but the rules at these small amateur rodeos are much more relaxed.  I was able to wander anywhere I wanted, and got right against the fence between the roughstock chutes and the roping chute. 

Being close to the action was a great experience, and I was able to get a few interesting crowd shots.

I also got close to the roping competitors, and this girl is a breakaway roper.  The cowgirl ropes the calf, but it isn’t thrown and tied as in the men’s calf roping competition.  Here you can see how muddy it was as the horse skids to a stop.  I decided to use slower shutter speeds to try to capture some movement in the roping events.

I liked the way the loop of this calf roper’s lasso showed up as he chased the speeding calf.  Imagine how hard it would be to rope a calf going full speed on a galloping horse through the mud!

I tried various shutter speeds, and liked this motion image best at 0.6 seconds.  Anything slower lost too much form, making it hard to tell what was going on.  My goal was a feeling of speed with just enough information to be able to recognize the speeding horse.

Soon after I took this photo, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees F, and another storm blew in.  I put away the camera and left before the blowing rain could ruin my gear.  It was another exciting day here in  Montpelier, Idaho.

Remember, all my photographs are copyrighted and cannot be used without my permission.

Canada Goose Goslings

Spring has finally come to the Bear Lake Valley in Idaho.  There still aren't many leaves on the trees since we live at nearly 6000' elevation, but the Canada Geese have been here for awhile, and now their babies are starting to appear.  Linda and I drove out to Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge today, and while we saw hundreds of adult pairs, we only saw three with goslings.

It might be awhile before we see more goose families.  The parents are very protective of their babies and swim with them in a tight group.  After a minute or so, they swam into the bulrushes and the babies nearly disappeared as they blended in to the surroundings.

Who can resist these little balls of yellow fluff?  They will stay with their parents for up to a year.

161 bird species have been counted here at Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge.  Hay fields in the area are cut to provide feeding sites for the birds, and alfalfa, wheat, and barley are grown around the edge of the marsh to provide food for wildlife.  We are lucky to have this resource so close to home.

Please note that my photos are copyrighted and should not be used without permission.

Greater Sage-Grouse

Jim Parker has been responsible for some of my best adventures in the Bear Lake Valley, Idaho area, and this one is near the top of my list.  Every spring the greater sage-grouse gather together and put on a courtship display in areas called leks.  These are relatively clear areas in the sagebrush where groups of males can do their best to attract the females.  The lek locations are not publicized to avoid conflicts with people.

Jim is really good at tracking down interesting things to photograph.  He picked me up at 6:15 AM and we drove to an area where he had seen grouse the previous day.  It was well before sunrise when we got there, and there were no grouse.  An hour or so later, the sun came up and we saw a few in the distance.  They were easy to see because of their bright white collars.  Jim put his truck in 4wd to drive across country where we found a lek with dozens of male sage-grouse.

The males put on a wonderful display, fanning their tails, strutting, and inflating air sacs in their chests.  Sometimes their heads almost disappeared into their feathers because the air sacs were so big.  They deflate these sacs with an audible POP, which I suppose is meant to be irresistible to the hens.

We were very close to the action, but most of the males didn’t seem to care and continued with their displays, but the females kept their distance.  After a half hour of watching and taking pictures we left, and we hope that the cautious hens came to the lek in response to these remarkable displays.  Just one or two dominant males will mate with all the females, so presenting an impressive display is really important.

The greater sage-grouse was considered for placement on the endangered species list, but that would have had a big impact on ranching, oil and gas exploration, etc.  An effort to improve sagebrush habitat had a positive impact on sage-grouse survival and avoided placement on the list, at least for now.

Please note that my photos are copyrighted and must not be used without my permission.

Ice Blocks and Hoarfrost

My January 12, 2016 “Mysterious Ice” post was in about this same location.  At that time, the ice was piled up in delicate sheets about a millimeter thick.  Now, huge blocks of ice have blown against North Beach jetty at Bear Lake State Park, Idaho.

Tons of ice stacked up here, and after a few days they were covered with hoarfrost.

Most of the piles of ice reached five to seven feet above the surface of the lake, but this one was at least ten feet high.  Backlighting by the sun really made the blue color of the ice stand out.

This photo was taken from about the same location as the opening photo from my January 12 post.  The boulders have been covered by the blocks of broken ice.

I noticed a delicate feather trapped in one of the ice blocks.  Access was difficult because it was in a little alcove in the ice, and I had to kneel on a jumble of slippery ice blocks.  There must have been billions of tiny hoarfrost crystals.  These photos were taken with a Tamron 90mm macro lens. 

There are a few open leads in the ice at the north end of the lake, but most of the lake is still covered with ice.  It will be interesting to see what happens when it warms up, especially if there is a strong wind to blow the ice to the shore.  This could be an exciting spring.

Please note that my photographs are copyrighted, and you cannot use them for any purpose without my permission.

Elk at Hardware Ranch

Our Sharp Shooters Camera Club went on a field trip to Hardware Ranch in Utah last Saturday to photograph a big herd of elk up close and personal.

This has got be one of the best deals anywhere for family entertainment.  This year there are about 400 elk at the ranch, and we rode a horse-drawn sleigh to see them, for just $5.00 each.

There are many more cows than bulls on the ranch, and the ladies seem to be good at ignoring this bull.  We were told that about 80% of the cows are pregnant, and they need to eat more than the bulls, so they are more likely to come down to the feeding grounds.  All the elk will leave when the snow melts and food becomes available in the mountains again.

Elk need to leave the mountains to find food in the winter, and most of their historic feeding areas no longer exist because of development.  Hardware Ranch, and many other locations in the Rocky Mountains, has been established to grow hay during the summer and provide food for the elk in winter.

This little guy is an elk calf.  It may look small, but an adult bull Rocky Mountain elk (wapiti) can weigh 700 pounds.  The elk here are completely wild and unfenced, so getting this close is a great opportunity.

This is the largest bull elk on the ranch at the moment.  His massive antlers are really impressive, but will shed by the end of winter.  Antler size is determined by age, nutrition, and genetics.

Why do the elk tolerate sleighs full of people?  Our guide said she thinks they are used to being fed from a sleigh so they don’t associate them with danger.  But, if someone gets off the sleigh so the elk see a human shape, they run off in a hurry.  In fact, our sleigh lost a “tug” which had to be reattached.  A second sleigh was placed alongside so the repair could be done while hidden from the elk.  None of this could be done without the beautiful, patient draft horses, and they seem to like attention after each ride.

I recommend Hardware Ranch as a great family destination in the winter.  The kids will love it.

Please note that these photos are all copyrighted and should not be used without my permission.