Many times this week Leah and I caught ourselves looking out toward our pasture to check on Smokey and Pumpkin, a habit we developed in the 16 years there were animals grazing there. It’s strange how empty the pasture feels to us with the recent passing of those creatures. The pasture grass is already beginning to grow high and it won’t be long before that part of our place goes wild.
There are many animals in our world, of course, and with Smokey and Pumpkin on my mind the past several days, I suppose it is not surprising that I photographed other four-leggeds.
Friends invited me to go on a mushroom foraging trip in the mountains near Chinook Pass, and, though I did not find many mushrooms, I did happen upon a fawn, nesting alone in some tall grass. Its mother must have been out foraging for food too, and I was careful not to get too close to the baby (I used a long telephoto lens to make the image you see here.)
Another day I walked down the lane that passes our neighbor’s place and saw their horse out grazing near a huge patch of buttercups, the horse’s mane blowing in the breeze.
When Smokey and Pumpkin were with us, I never went outside without a camera because those two critters were kind of like our kids and it was my role to take pictures of their lives. I suspect there are other creatures who live in our pasture I’ll now get to know -- frogs? butterflies? birds? -- but, for the time being, I look out there and really miss seeing that old sheep and goat.
