calf photo shoot

Heavy blue-gray rainclouds dulled the sunlight just enough for a reasonably good picture-taking day. The clouds were a bit choppy, with stretches of blue sky between, so a few photos turned out to be more shadowy than others, but overall I was happy with the way it softened the calves' fur and made them look like big, friendly stuffed animals! I don't know how happy my younger sisters, Hannah and Amy, were to be dragged out into ice-shard rain blown in on a driving wind, though.

Several of this year's 12 calves are represented in the following pictures, which I edited slightly to make the most of the colors. Twelve is about an average year's crop of calves, and we would actually have raised more but four died early on (three to abortion and one was a very weak twin).

The calf above with the #12 tag is our youngest. Their white fur looks so clean.

I love the following picture. The cow and calf seem to rhyme. Despite looking so much alike, however, that cow isn't the calf's mother!

The next three remind me of time and age--a tiny calf sleeping under an ancient pine tree with a tired old cow in the background; a calf standing amid a labyrinth of old rocks; and a dirty, aged cow who's borne eight or ten calves in her lifetime.

 

This next calf looked so much like a cuddly black bear that I couldn't resist a picture, even though the lighting was getting harsher.