Cattle Country

Raising cattle myself, I am attracted to them wherever I see them and this is particularly true in Eastern Oregon. I also love to photograph the big ranches especially when they are set way back from the road in an idyllic location. On this trip, I got a chance to photograph quite a few, will share a couple here.

I can never pass up photographing the accouterments of ranch work either. I love loading chutes especially if they are old. Equally fascinating to me are the remnants of where a ranch once was but was bought by some larger rancher and now only the dreams that were dashed linger behind. Eastern Oregon is full of such because it takes a lot of land over there to make a living and the homestead acts only dealt out limited acreage. It might have seemed a lot to someone from the East, but out here, it was just enough to wear your fingers to the bone, break your back, and in the end go broke.

Traveling the west, with some awareness of the cycles of ranch life, helps to give meaning to what you are seeing. For instance in August, unless the woods are dry, many cattle are still in the higher country. They will be grazing along streams or chewing their cud under trees enjoying the afternoon shade just as we would do. They lose their calves, just as ours down here do, and have farther to look to find them. A cow gets to grazing along, looks up after awhile and wonders where everybody else went.

Some would like to see all cattle off government lease allotments, but properly grazing on that land is actually good for it. Bringing them there at the right time, not over grazing will lead to less burnable fodder for the forest fires that are inevitable. Irresponsible grazing, of course, leads to all of the worst for the land.

When I see cattle on the lower pastures this early, I wonder if they lost their grazing privileges (cattle love going to new places, definitely it was a cow who first said-- the grass is always greener over that hill), or maybe the higher elevation grasses have dried up, or perhaps it's owner concern for fire. With the fast moving fires that the west has in the summer, cattle are definitely at the mercy of the elements and many times it would be impossible for the cowboys to get them out ahead of a bad firestorm.

Many places in Eastern Oregon are open range, which means drivers have the responsibility to watch out for cows, calves or bulls on the road. During certain seasons, the fall or spring for instance, you are likely to run into cattle drives and you just settle back and wait them out. If you have a camera, you can sometimes get good photos as I did several years ago of this drive near Silver Lake. The main thing is cattle have right of way and don't spook them by being in a hurry.

Finally anybody, who reads this, knows I have had a thing for cowboys. Well, in Shaniko, a town that once was much larger, but lately has been growing due to some outside interests with money renovating parts of it, well here was this guy just sitting there and what is a gal to do?

There were actually two cowboys on that bench and unfortunately the one of my choice appeared to have more interest in shooting the breeze with his pal than me. Alas and alack-- the story of my life where it comes to men!