Category Archives: Photographs

A lucky day for us, we managed to get our calves branded at the Paregien Ranch just before the rain. Clarence, Zach and Douglas went up the hill early to sort the cattle and get the fire started before the rest of us arrived. Between vaccinating, keeping the cook fire going and setting-up her kitchen, Robbin managed to get a few photos. We ate in the rain, and as much as we all would have liked to sit around the fire and visit, we had to get off the hill before the roads got too slick. Thanks, as always, to our neighbors (in order of the last photo) Clarence Holdbrooks, Virginia and Kenny McKee, Tony Rabb, Douglas Thomason, Zach Shaver, Jody Fuller, Chuck Fry and Brent Huntington (Spencer Jensen was headed down the hill to pick his kids up at school)—and we all give thanks for the half-inch rain.

There are no weekends this time of year. We’ve had our usual snafus with bulls, now that they’ve been out with the cows for a couple of weeks, establishing their own pecking order among the other bulls, changing fields, etc., despite our best laid plans. We’ve had two good days gathering at the Paregien Ranch where we hope to get some calves branded ahead of the rainy weather forecast for tomorrow afternoon. We’ve had all kinds of weather to brand at the Paregien Ranch in past years, including fog so thick you couldn’t see across the branding pen, and snow.

The cows and calves are about 30 minutes off the asphalt at 2,200′, sorted, and on hay in two wire lots we hope will hold until we get there early tomorrow a.m. We’re going for it, unless it’s raining in the morning; and looking forward to seeing our neighbors, unless we have to turn the cattle out.

Laysan Albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis)
Kilauea Point

Laysan Albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis)
Kilauea Point

We were lucky enough, while on Kauai, to see some albatross nesting. Fairly tame and docile birds, the females mate for life, some attaining 60 years. Subject to widespread hunting in the early 1900s for their feathers, the population of the Layson Albatross is rebounding. The juvenile albatross does not return to the colony for three years, spending that time at sea or in the air, and does not mate until six or seven years old.

What a difference a week plus an inch and a half rain make, low temperatures in the mid-forties, high 70° yesterday—truly a miracle: rain, seed and green.

1st-calf heifers and Wagyu X calves