Their last and only professional portrait!

It's the final day that our four cattle are with us at the Smith Ranch before going to the sale barn.  It's a beautiful sunny September morning and a perfect day for outside portraits.  I grabbed my wide-angle lens and camera and headed out to the corral to have some fun.  The cattle have no clue that they are probably getting their last and only professional portrait!  They think I'm bringing them a treat.  They get very close to me with cute expressions on their face.  I have included my favorites from their session for you to get a good laugh!  Enjoy!!!

Horsing around

I was petting Reese Cup at the fence when Ace who is the boss of the pasture came up.  Reese turned to Ace and it looked like she was saying, "You're still the boss."  They get along so much better now than they used to.  Thank God for rain this season as they have been having their fill of pasture grass.  They look so strong and muscular!  Reese Cup's coat turned a pretty brown color this summer. I looked up her color and it officially called "dark bay."

 The image below was actually the first shot taken but I wanted to put the intimate one first.  Reese Cup saw me and decided to come over to me.

 Here she is hoping I had a treat but instead gets a closeup portrait taken.  She is being distracted as right after this shot she gallops over to our new neighbors who have two horses.

 She is galloping over to the neighbors next door to spend time with their horses.

Ace decides to join her.  Here he is starting to trot.

 Ace is galloping over now.  If you look closely, you can see Reese communicating with the neighbor's horse in the top center of this image below.

My sunflower garden

I love sunflowers!!!!  Just this week they started sprouting around my front yard, and not just a few.  They sprouted in bunches!  I braved the 100 degree heat, chiggers and bees to capture these lovely wildflowers that God placed in my yard.  Enjoy.... :)

March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb

As I looked out of our office window today, I couldn't believe what I saw.  Huge and plenty of snowflakes dropping from the sky.  It was beautiful!!!!  I quickly grabbed my camera and took some photos before this short March snowfall ended.  Here are a few shots of the snow falling out on the flint hills of Kansas.  Enjoy!

Snow and horses

It was so pretty out this morning as the snowflakes on the dry wildflowers glistened in the sun.  If you look closely at the first photo (to the right of the left wildflower), you can see three snowflakes that blew off of the wildflower.  While photographing in our yard, the horses came over hoping to get a treat.  It looks like they were enjoying the snow too as you can see by the photos I've included below.

We're free!

"We're free!"  That's how our two horses and four donkeys looked like when we let them out into the pasture after they had been confined to a few acres for a few months while my husband moved the fence closer to our entry road (see first photo below),  The photos below are my favorites that were taken while riding the tractor and following them around the pasture.  To see a slideshow of all of the photos, click here.  Enjoy!

A beautiful Thursday sunrise

Before I found God at an Apostolic church, I would look at nature and know that there was a supreme being out there that had to have created the beautiful and intricate things in nature.  Those discoveries were made as a child growing up in Baltimore, in a home situated in a city park.  When I started delving into photography, it intensified my awareness of the beauty of nature.  I don't normally get up early, but had to photograph this beautiful sunrise that God provided for humanity for us to enjoy.  Here are four stages of the sunrise from this morning for your viewing pleasure.