Getting Bigger

I have had a lot of new people commenting on posts, liking my Double H Photography Facebook page, and emailing me about topics they saw on Facebook or here. Thank you to everyone! I really appreciate it, and truly enjoy hearing from people.
To celebrate and help say thank, I'm planning a giveaway when my blog reaches 80 followers, or my Facebook pages reaches 250 likes. Not sure what the prize will be, and there may be multiple choices.
So, share the word, like the Facebook page if you're a blog follower, and stay tuned on how to win!

Happy Birthday Wyoming!

Happy 122 birthday to my wonderful homestate of Wyoming today!

We were the first state to allow women to vote and elected the first woman governor, the homeplace of JCPenney, where the first national park was created (Yellowstone), and where the nation's oldest national moment resides (Devil's Tower).

Today we have the world's largest coal mine in the U.S.  (Black Thunder Mine near Wright), are a leading producer of sheep and wool in the country, and host the "Daddy of 'em All" Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo each July in Cheyenne. Agriculture, energy and tourism top our revenue list each year, and we are a conservative, republican based state.

Our just over 560,000 residents are significantly outnumbered by cattle (we like it that way), and there are still a lot of wide open spaces across this great state. I've been fortunate enough to travel much of it via main highways, backgrounds, and trails - in cars, on horses and even occasional in a plane. Grab your atlas and take a look around my beautiful state with me!

 (Black Hills, northeast Wyoming)

 (northern Niobrara County, eastern Wyoming)

 (Bighorn Mountains, near Buffalo)

 (Goshen County, southeast Wyoming)

 (Powder River, near Kaycee)

 (Outside Lander)

 (Southwest Wyoming)

 (Johnson County, near Sussex)

 (On top of the Bighorn Mountains)

 (Pathfinder Reservoir running over in 2010, near Alcova, central Wyoming)

 (Between Gillette and Buffalo)

 (near Dubois)

 (northern Fremont County)

 (near TenSleep)

 (Rocky Point, northern Wyoming)

 (Yellowstone Park)

(Yellowstone Park)

(near Wheatland)

 (Laramie, 10 months out of the year)

A Very Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, and happy birthday to Jesus! We have had a wonderful Christmas at our house! Hope yours is merry and bright and filled with God's love too!

 There were uniquely wrapped gifts

 We always give a lot of practical, usable gifts.

Had to share the Double H Photography mugs I got!

Fun gifts.

 The latest in sleepwear fashion.

 Sadly the one of all three of us was blurry.

My sister makes sure each dog gets a Christmas present too. Emmie thinks hers will be nice to nap on rather than rip apart.

My sister got a wii, and it was a big hit. We looked like this for hours today.

and like this...

and even like this.
Merry Christmas to everyone! May you all enjoy the blessings you have, and remember the true reason for this holiday.

Friday Photos

Today I checked the water for our yearling heifers and two-year old cows, who are wintering together. Here are a few photos from my "trip." It's about three miles to their water, and it takes over 30 minutes one way to drive the two-track, very rough road, if you can call it a road. In the winter, our primary responsibility is feeding and checking water for the livestock, and I enjoy the job a lot! Hope you have a great weekend.
Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't yet!

Sunday Scenes

Here are a few fall photos from around the state of Wyoming for you to enjoy on your Sunday! God bless.

One Hot Situation

We have experienced an onslaught of range fires in my part of Wyoming over the last week. So many fires were blazing at once that our county's resources couldn't keep up with them. So, the fire district made the decision to call in paid resources (not our local paid people that were helping all they could), and relinquish control of the fires to the state of Wyoming.

The result was a disastrous loss of grass, endangerment of people, and frustration to local landowners.

See that guy in the picture? See him watching the Niobrara County guys and local ranchers do all the cleanup work? He was parked in that very spot when the fire was being put out also. His pickup had a sticker on the door that said, "Wyoming Forestry," and he was getting paid to stand there, watching a rancher's land burn up before him, offering no assistance when his very job was to help extinguish the flames.

That was a much too common sight over the last week. We learned today that these paid resources make at or above $28/hour, and their pickups are paid between $60 and $170 an hour. Why would they want the fire to go out?

We heard there were over 200 of them swarming around our county. How much money is that over a three-day period?!!?

It became apparent early on in when they entered our county that they had no intention of extinguishing any flames very fast. No, that burning grass was making them a nice, fat paycheck. They would park in the black and sleep and drive along fire-lines and watch the fire creep over it without even stopping. They would watch local ranchers and fire fighters almost burn up and not even bat an eye, let alone help. They would refuse to share water, and ask everyone to give theirs up to them.

Then they get to leave, collect that nice, fat paycheck, and move on to encourage the destruction of someone else livelihood. Meanwhile, the people left in their wake are faced with a financial crisis. Their grass is gone, fences gone, and they aren't getting a paycheck to fix it. They have to live with, and correct, this disaster brought on by human mismanagement.

This is wrong, and infuriating. Getting rich off the destruction of someone else's livelihood, when you were specifically hired to stop the destruction, is sick and wrong.

I personally witnessed numerous incidents that left me speechless over the last few days in regard to these paid resources. Their absolute negligence in doing their job was astounding, and resulted in losses that might even outweigh their paychecks.

When you're sitting in the dark, watching your next door neighbor's land burn up in flames that are 6-8 feet tall, and you see headlights on the next ridge, you assume that person will be there to stop the fire in that direction. What we've all learned in Niobrara County this week is you better radio and see if it's someone you know, and if it's not, you better assume he's going to do everything he can to fan the flames instead of extinguish them, regardless of the resulting loss in grass, homes, life or anything else.

When you call in additional resources, it's because you truly need them, not because you want to make the situation worse. Those that did aid in the efforts were truly appreciated, but they were far and few between.
What is our country coming to?

My Week

This is what I look like right now, and this picture was taken just a couple hours ago. I am only on my computer because I am thawing out hamburger, so I can take hamburgers back to the fire when I go (people fight fire round the clock, and get hungry. Local ranch wives do the majority of the feeding.)
Multiple fires have kept everyone where I'm from extremely busy and tired this week. The one in the above photo has burned on at least four rancher's land that I'm aware of. Thursday night my brother and I left at 9:00 p.m., and got home at 6:00 a.m. from fighting fire. This morning we put one out before eating breakfast. Prayers for everyone's safety would be greatly appreciated!

To make things even more exciting/nerve wracking, several funnels came across one of the larger blazes this afternoon, sucking the flames up into it. Made for an interesting photo if nothing else.

I will be back with regular posts when life returns to a normal, smoke and fire free status around here.

Cattle pictures

Here are some cattle photos from the last several weeks for you to start you week with. Happy Monday everyone : )
I am also linking this post up with Deborah Jean's Dandelion House Farmgirl Friday blog hop this week