Goat Trix Pix

A young goat has two missions in life. One is to get to the food first, at any cost, and eat all of said food before anybody else does. A young goat's other mission is to always be higher than all the other goats and when that isn't possible, to be at least sitting on or near whatever might be different in the environment--be it an old tire, a tree stump, a body (live or otherwise) or the barest hump in the surrounding field. Today I took the flattened cardboard boxes that we'd set out as shelter for the goats on cold nights (they'd flattened each one in their attempts to fulfill their life missions to be highest) and laid them out on top of a dolly and against a tree stump just to keep the goats occupied while I shot them--otherwise they are too busy trying to climb me or to nibble on my camera strap for me to shoot them. Here is a little montage of their antics on the carboard. I have to say, the cardboard was a big hit with them after snack time today. The only other time they're this happy is when they're sucking down a warm Coke bottle full of Land-o-Lakes lamb meal replacer.

Click image to enlarge.



















The middle one above is my favorite. It's not easy to snap a levitating goat.


Joy! The mulberry tree has started to bud out with fruit! I love fresh mulberries. I did a pathetic job of shooting the mulberry tree last year, see them on the last page here, and hope to get some better shots of those small but beautiful berries this year. And, oh yum, I can't wait to eat the berries! Ripe warm berries right off the tree is heaven. We have a freeze predicted early next week. I'd be grateful for it, but will be very sad if the berries all freeze before they can mature.

These images and their larger counterparts are here.

Update: The freeze seems to have done considerable damage to the budding mulberries. They are pathetic this year.

Baby goats are proving very difficult for me to shoot!

A couple more are here.

Ho hum shots from Brackettville

Not a lot going on in front of my lens this week. Shot these two in the yard, yeah, very ho hum. But I gotta keep my feet wet and if you are wondering what life looks like in a tiny little rural town in southwest Texas, then here you go. Wish I had a telefoto lens for my digital, the cardinals have set up house in our carport thanks to a bag of seed my husband spilled there. They're around constantly now and they're an amazing splash of color in our otherwise drab, and dead looking yard.

Photo editing practice

Original and without any cropping or editing of any kind:

Post-Op:

Enlarged it won't hold up under scrutiny, but smaller I think it actually looks fairly okay. I will probably practice on this pic a lot. It took a lot of layers to do the fix and I need to learn to work within those layers. Right now, it's all hack and bash. I have no clue what I'm doing.

Final Clovenfield Entry

I created this blog to be my photography portfolio showing my best photo work. And that's pretty much what I use it for except when I'm trying to tell a story or share some event or experience through photos. I did a bit of that today, throwing in some of my less than favorite shots of the day to share what I saw.

I've already posted 99% of my Clovenfield favorites along with some others that I'm not nearly so fond of but they seemed appropriate to add for various reasons. This is the last one that was among my favorites.

What I like about this photo is that the big goat's chest, face, and neck make this nice, nearly S-shaped curve above the baby whose head, back, and tail somewhat mirror that shape. I've been ever in search of the elusive (to me) S-shape in a photo and I think this is the first time I've really gotten it in a way that I cared to share it. Although I may go in soon and try to remove that blasted bit of dried grass that is practically cutting my baby goat in half, ack!

I also loved the little bit of red that you can see in the photo. Without that, it would have been quite blah and I don't think I'd have looked at it twice.

So, not a remarkable shot, but an exciting one for me. My mentor, Jean, taught me to look for certain shapes in my photography composition and I've been looking for an S for about two years now. Finally!

Oh, and in case you are Boer-Curious, here's a link to African Boer Goats.

Faces

Click to see Clovenfield in its entirety

Stalked by the deadly African Boer Goat who was cleverly camouflaged behind the tall Serengeti grasses. It's a wonder I wasn't killed

Baby goats are about the cutest thing on the planet. They're insanely playful. They want to know what everything is. They always want to be in or on whatever is nearest them. If there's a tire, they're in it or on it. If there's a rock big enough to stand on, they stand on it. If there is one bump in their immediate vicinity higher than the other bumps around them, they'll get on that bump and they'll stand there triumphantly until all the other goats notice.


They'll suckle anything they can get their mouths on, including your fingers if you don't watch where you allow them to hang. They give you kisses, suckle your ears, and chase each other around like little maniacs. They'll leap into the air for no reason at all about every four step when they are running. I can't prove it because I don't have a video camera, but I'm 99% sure that they skip.




They're so cute it hurts your eyes. You pick one up and you totally forget that it's covered in its own feces. The cuteness far outweighs the filth.


They have incredible personalities that make them so loveable that even when they've eaten the potted ficus you inherited from your late mother (the only plant of hers you hadn't quite killed yet) and even when they've nibbled away the last of your herb garden, you still find yourself making goo goo noises and baby talk as you give in and let them have a nosh on your shoelaces.


This wee baby goat spied me and headed my way. But not directly, no. He's a stalker, this one. He came at me using that little tuft of dead grass as cover.

Surely she can't see me! We African Boer Goats know our stuff, we can hunt.... um... those big, tall, feed sack bearing, two legged things like no one else can!





I shall encompass her doom! Muah ha ha ha!


I shot this little baby several times but not all the shots came out very well. For one, it was "hiding" behind dead grasses that were totally blowing my shot and for two, I used the flash on several shots and they came out looking kind of crappy.

Coming Soon To A Blogger Near You

Clovenfield

Hands down, my favorite shot of the day!

Spent a couple of hours with hubby while he fed goats and I took photo after photo after photo. I'm working on them now. There will be goats, sheep, mules, horses, and cattle.

No goats were harmed in the shooting of this blog entry. We did eat a cow, however.

No, we weren't torturing this little sweetie. She'd gotten out of the pens and was seperated from her mother. I think she'd been stuck out there for a while. We got mom out of the fence, she'd gotten stuck trying to get to her baby, and then hubby caught the baby to put her back in the pens but I made him hold her for a minute first so I could take a few shots.

When a goat screams for it's mother it sounds like it's being impaled on a spike. It's horrible! But once they feel safe again they're as happy as can be.

My day in Clovenfield.