Sunday Drive

It’s as close as we ever get to a Sunday drive - going to check cows. The first herd is about 10 miles away on crop aftermath. It's difficult getting a farmer interested in grazing cows, so we really appreciate my cousin Paul for giving this a try. He ran the pivot after his barley was harvested, and with plenty of seed on the ground, just look at the regrowth! He lives nearby and hauls water to the cows every day. It's a bit of an experiment, so we hope it's a win/win and he'll do it again next year.

Then we drove on up to the older cows in the mountains about 2,000 feet above the valley. As we drove higher and higher the snow got deeper and deeper. It was light and fluffy, so we knew the cows would have no trouble grazing through it. We found them in good shape, sticking their noses up to their eyes in the snow, grazing contentedly. 

The sky was sapphire blue against the snow. I made Mark stop so I could take photos along the way. I felt like my Mom, who always had her camera along when she went to the hills with Dad. There’s been no wind, so every fence post had a cap of snow nearly five inches deep. Snow hung in the branches of the sagebrush, fir, and quakies. And behind it all, a rich golden light. One of those days you try, but can’t quite capture the beauty of.