Look What I Got :)

My good friend Mary sneaked a photo of our mailbox post (which has our ranch "brand" or symbol on it - we use it on stationary, business cards and shirts, NOT the animals...) and sent it to another gal on our website who does custom caps... this was my surprise:

And just look at the cute horseshoe on the back:

When I opened it I got tears... and a BIG GRIN!

Camping puppies

The pups had SUCH a good time camping at Groom Creek. Hannah's second litter pup #3, who is now Chelsie and belongs to my friend Mary, got to come too... here's Chelsie, Rocket and Sherman

Sherman playing lumberjack (yes that's a baby TREE he's chewing on) and Rocket helping out

Darci on alert

Rocket and Chelsie playing king of the stump

Meeting a new friend, a heeler pup named Shasta

More Groom Creek Fun :)

Another trip to Groom Creek Horse Campground which is south of Prescott on the Senator Highway... arrived in a pouring rain but it stopped as soon as we got the horses unloaded... had a nice ride before dinner:

gorgeous wildflowers...


and just look at my boys keeping warm (while Darci begs for a lap, she's no dummy lol)

Yellowstone #18 - What a Rack!

OK the last couple of elk... this single buck had the best rack we saw in the wild...

and this fine fellow saved us from the motorhome from hell on Sunday morning on our way out of the park... we had been stuck behind it FOREVER but when this buck showed up they pulled over to take pictures, so we went around them and just snapped one each as we drove by...

Yellowstone #17 - A Smaller Elk Herd

Leaving the park in the evening on Saturday we stopped for one last herd of elk, the largest we had seen so far, about a dozen...


This will show you what I mean about a bunch of people taking photos... when you see this you KNOW there is wildlife near!

They let us get pretty close...

See how close we were!?!


Mama and baby wading





Baby in the water...

This was the only time we saw a "mixed" herd - although it wasn't really a "herd", Mr. Buffalo was just cruisin' through... and boy was he cruisin'!!






At one point he actually charged at a couple of the elk - they ran AND you should have seen all the people scatter!

Yellowstone #16 - The Buffalo Herd

One of my goals for this trip was to see a "big" herd of SOMETHING... I didn't really care what...

Turned out it was buffalo :) and again spotted by discovering a bunch of other stopped vehicles and people walking with cameras... we were up on a cliff and the wind was blowing really hard... the herd was in the valley below but again Andria's zoom got some decent shots. I would have liked to see a big herd running but this was still pretty awesome...
This is a view of the cliff from the road, with the herd in the valley below. We walked out to that point to get better pictures.


They were pretty scattered, but I'm guessing there were about 200 or so!






I think it was pretty much nap time lol


A pair of sleeping young'uns...

Then one little guy got up and stretched... it seemed he was looking right at us!

The perspective doesn't show it but this guy was pretty darn big!
Seeing them made my day :)

Yellowstone #15 - Miscellaneous Wildlife

At first we weren't even sure this was a coyote, neither of us had ever seen such a light-colored one before...

We were surprised at how calmly he walked across and along the road, here at home they DART across the highway trying to make it across without getting hit...

We did see another the next day, but were traveling too fast to get the camera out... it was a more normal color but the same build and gait as this one so that confirmed for us that it was a "pale coyote"...

And we saw quite a few of these little cuties:


Can you spot the heron??