The Great Plains

I'm settling back in Wisconsin for a few days anyway and can finally get a new post up.  I was pretty happy I survived the trip out to North Dakota-crazy record low pressure reading and winds over 50 mph.  It took tow days, but we made it.  Hunting was not great-too deep of snow for pheasants and too hard of ice for ducks.  Still....had fun.  It is a beautiful place and I love spending time there, but I'd need my beloved trees to live.  I tried my new camera, the Samsung XXX model, and had my trusty Canon SD550 and my Canon SXI.  The new camera I was a bit afraid to carry while hunting, but used it on the trip and around camp.  Worked okay-some little things I don't care for, but I'm getting used to it.   This will probably be a multi-post thing, a few images here and some to follow.

Lone Cemetery Cottonwood

I can't remember what this cemetery was named on the topo map, but I'd run across it a few years ago.  We were doing a push for roosters across a big field and I knew this was near the end.  I had to visit it again.  These little cemeteries are tucked all over out here on the plains-postage stamp sized pieces of the harsh life out on this land.  It's not visible here, but the cottonwood was growing up thru the middle of a grave site, maybe 6' X 6' and was long forgotten.

Barley doin her thang

Barley is one of the best Labs I've met-small, compact, retrieves and has the whole get in their face pheasant thing figured out.  Amazing dog.  She seems to be featured in a lot of my photos and after a long day hunting, find my bed her favorite place to sleep.  I thought this photograph really summed up her as a hunting dog.  A picture tells a "tousand" words I do believe.

Hunter Dave

As the camp photographer, a role I easily won over my pals, there rarely is any photos of me-I don't mind and enjoy making a book of each trip.  Dave is one of my closest friends and he, besides Barley, seems to get 'shot' a lot.  This image I liked-just the hunter hunting and the simpleness of the foreground-the pheasants habitat (which is sadly disappearing).