Need Cup of Cowboy Coffee

MyMrMallory and I were invited by a real live cattle foreman to watch and photograph real live cowboys round up, brand, and medicate cattle. To enjoy more photographs, please click at left the link to my Pbase site, and go to  the album entitled "Cowboys Branding in Archer County."

Cattle ranching requires miles of fencing and their maintenance. Here, the fencers arrive to repair the fence, unaware of the foreman's plans to brand cattle at these pens.

A fencer's truck carries a huge number of things (including beer).

In the distance, I spot a cowboy in the middle of Mesquite plants herding cattle toward the pens. Cowboys don't like Mesquite. It has thorns, grows in thick bushes, and hides cows. This land was once covered in grasslands, before the Mesquite plants migrated north. Behind him we can see oil pumps.

Each calf is lassoed, wrestled to the ground, branded, and medicated within seconds. 

Taking a break.

Cowboy pictures, including boots and the obligatory cute heinie.

Cowboys + Camera = Group Photo.

These guys rounded, lassoed, branded, and medicated approximately sixty head of cattle in three hours. In comparison, at one time, the Wagoner Ranch would do the same with 1200 head of cattle per day (I hear, so please confirm and let me know).

After work, off the cowboys go to the cafe in Archer County, with hunger and trailers and horses.

I am a cowboy in my dreams, tells Hodge, because I can't rise as early as they do. Bring me a cup of cowboy coffee, would you? 

Hermann's Book Released

Link to the Time Record News article about JoAnn's book by Richard Carter:
http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2010/apr/04/crites-writes-the-story-of-oil-boom-artist/

When JoAnn Jenne Crites met painter Emil Hermann in 1957 at a Hungarian relief fundraiser, she was 23 and he was 87.
“He still thought of himself as a lady’s man,” Crites laughed, “though it didn’t surprise me because he was a European who also was an artist.”
Despite being familiar with his best-known painting locally — the 70-foot Alma Mater mural over the stage at Wichita Falls High School (1924-25) — she doesn’t remember asking him “one intelligent question about his life or art.
“Had I known I was going to write his biography, I would have asked him a million questions.”
Crites began researching and writing the painter’s biography 11 years ago. Her book release party for “Emil Hermann His Life and Art” will be at the Museum of North Texas History from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. April 11.
Hermann was a landscape and portrait painter born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in June 1869. He moved to Wichita Falls in 1919 and split time between here and studios in Dayton, Ohio, and New York City before settling in Wichita Falls permanently in 1932 until his death in April 1966.
Hermann moved to America in 1892 and also had studios in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Tulsa. He probably created more than 2,000 paintings, and 1,000 or more are likely floating around the country, Crites said.
“Little is known about his life in Hungary,” she said. “He had been in Tulsa and was following the new oil money doing portraits of the oil barons. He came to Wichita Falls and Burkburnett because of the oil boom. People paid big money for portraits then,” she said,
Most of his work was commissioned. “Some of his early portraits are beautiful, but I feel his landscapes are much better.”
Shortly after Crites met Hermann in 1957, she married her geologist husband, Bill, in 1958 and soon after began a 32-year trek that went through West Texas, California, the Middle East and Africa before the couple returned here in 1990.
Crites began volunteering at the Wichita County Archives in 1992 and still volunteers at the North Texas History Museum four days a week.
While working on the massive Louise Kelly collection of 50 years of articles on Wichita County, Crites found articles on Hermann. Her aunt, who knew the artist, gave her a Hermann landscape from the 1920s, which further developed her interest in the painter and collecting his work. Crites now owns 17 of his paintings.
She worked on the Kelly collection for nine years until she discovered a column by Glenn Shelton that mentioned a box of Hermann letters. That reference led Crites on a quest that ended in a law firm’s warehouse in Dallas.
Once she found the images in the box and newspaper clippings from around the country, she decided to write a book on Hermann.
“I thought people needed to see his work and the information that Hermann had not told people or had hidden.”
She traveled to the cities where Hermann had lived and then began filling in the huge biographical holes and documenting his paintings as best she could.
“He was a news prima donna,” she laughed, “and there are hundreds of stories I probably overlooked.
“I never thought it would take that long to research and write.” Last year, she met Elizabeth Bourland Hawley, an area photographer and editor, who helped Crites get the biography published.
Crites was born in Friberg-Cooper community north of Wichita Falls.
She and her husband have two daughters, Kathleen and Cynthia, who are married and live in England.
Growing up, she studied ballet with Frank and Irina Pal. She also studied piano, French and German when she and her husband lived overseas.
The Museum of North Texas History will have copies of the book that contains more than 100 pictures of the artist, his family and his art. Books will be sold for $33. The public is welcome to the opening at the museum.
“I am hoping more people will want to send images of his work once they have read the book. Many folks have inherited his paintings and may not even know.” Written by Richard Carter for the Times Record News.

Great Horned Owl: Fledgling and Adult

Photo of a baby Great Horned Owl, held by BirdManBob, raised and released a couple of years ago by Wild Bird Rescue. Below, I show a photograph of an adult Great Horned Owl. 

Nothing Happening (Yet)

Sitting in BirdManBob's office while Missi's Mom wrote up a request for a grant for funding a mew for Missi, I looked outside and saw a few Brown Headed Cowbirds. One sat on a branch huddling against the winds.

Soon BirdManBob breezed through the door of the Wild Bird Rescue Center. He had driven from the Humaine Society to meet with the TV lady for an interview. "Why?" asked Missi's Mom, looking up from her computer. "Because of baby bird season," replied BirdManBob. "But we don't have any baby birds yet." Indeed, though a storm downed trees and power lines last night, no nests were found. BirdManBob's theory might show this season as our least busy, after the unusually cold and damp winter we have endured, delaying the migration period. 

The TV lady visited with Missi, then had a glowing report on the six o'clock news. 

They showed Missi on the television, not only sitting on the TV Lady's hand, but eating one of her fave snacks, a worm. "Thanks, BirdManBob. Yum."

All things, like the wisteria, look gorgeous during springtime. 

Clay County Jail Now Museum

Constructed in 1890 in Henrietta and employed as jail until 1973, the building characteristically included adjacent living quarters for the officers and their families. Texas Historical Landmark. I took all the photos below with my iPhone. Handy to have a cellphone with a camera when both my cameras had no card in them.

This is the north entrance, Starling singing on corbelled brick at top.

The large stone has a hole within it that undoubtedly families of native Americans employed to mash maiz or contain water.

An inscription on the sidewalk leading up to the north entrance.

Visit their website at http://claycountyjailmuseum.org/

Horsing Around in Dalhart

This is the view outside the Dalhart cafe. The curtains have an aviation theme, most appropriately. I saw both aviators and locals enjoying the food at the Dalhart Cafe. Above I show the Wichita Valley airport with its choice of landing strips (north/south and east/west) depending on the crosswinds. The buildings shown above were built during WWII for training. Indeed, some remnants of barracks remain near the buildings. A cook is busy preparing late breakfasts for locals and aviators at the Dalhart Cafe. I'd love to write the captions directly under each photograph, but the technical details of blog-keeping are a bit beyond me for now. 

The Panhandle of Texas has miles and miles of fencing. 

Horses rest in the late morning. 

A horse approached me, curious about me. 

The chickens lost interest in me once they found out I have no food for them.

The foreman and his family live here, with his Border Collie. 

Underneath this large roof they store wheat year round. 

A Dodge Ram 2500 transports the round bales of wheat hay. 

From Dalhart we flew to Pampa. Here's a picture of an old barn I took for Ben and Larry. Narcissus bloom in all that oldness and trash. 

Perry LeFors Field in Pampa constantly has aircraft traffic. Some of the aircraft are old and interesting, such as the Citabria pictured above, and often I see modern aircraft, such as Citations. The wind is always strong in Pampa, so make sure you tie down your airplane.

Silos.

Prairie Dog Town

Texas Master Naturalists each signed an indemnity document before entering a private ranch.

Prairie Dog Town.

A Prairie Dog mound next to a Mesquite plant.

In addition to the dogs, we heard two Spotted Coarse toads, spotted several jackrabbits, ten or twelve Burrowing owls, four Lark Sparrows, several Mockingbirds, and two badger holes.

Here we are on the mound next to the pond.

 

Larry and Judy inspect oil field trash. 

Hunkering in the Wind

Winds blew at thirty miles per hour, gusting at fifty or more. The winds, though, brought beautiful cloud formations, and they passed overhead as quickly as they appeared. It was a great opportunity for landscape photographers. I remained indoors hunkering against the wind.

An American Coot braved the choppy waters. 

 I could kick myself for forgetting to change the settings on my camera from f36 to f4 or so in order to capture the Yellow-rumped Warbler looking for worms and insects in this old Pecan tree. But after noting my mistake, I began to call this image an "artistic action shot" that shows some movement -- that makes it look interesting -- in the bird. I may have stumbled upon a new photographic genre: blurry photos that look artistic. Help me think of a good label for this. On another note, Yellow-rumped Warblers are also called Butter Butts. Last night I learned from Penny that she refers to them as such. 

Aviator Marion

I feel deeply honored to have shared brunch this morning with Marion Stegeman Hodgson, along with other 99s.